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THE LAURENTIANS 



Boofts b^ 

T. MORRIS LONGSTRETH 



THE ADIRONDACKS 
8vo, 370 pages 

THE CATSKILLS 
8vo, 321 pages 

THE LAURENTIANS 

8vo, 459 pages 

MAC OF PLACID 

12mo. 339 pages 



Digitized by tine Internet Arciiive 
in 2010 witii funding from 
Tine Library of Congress 



Iittp://www.arcliive.org/details/laurentiansliills01long 





Photograph by Walter Rutherford. 

A MONTAGNAIS MOTHEB. 



THE LAURENTIANS 

THE HILLS OF THE HABITANT 



BY 
T. MORRIS LONGSTRETH 

Author of "The Adirondac'ks," The Catskills,' 
"Mac of Placid," etc. 



ILLUSTRATED WITH 

PHOTOGRAPHS AND 

MAPS 




NEW YORK 
THE CENTURY CO. 

1922 



Copyriglit, 1922, by 
The Centuby Co. 



PRINTED VS U. S. A, 



SUN -3 1922 



©CI.A674426 



TO 

DR. AND MRS. CHARLES WHARTON 
STORK 

Dear Wharton and Lisl: 

Years ago when you took me in, infant of 
letters that I was, clothed me with confidence, 
fed me with judicious praise, and held the cup 
of kindly criticism to my lips, you gave me 
the sinews for that most importunate pursuit 
which cries to every man, the finding of him- 
self. You welcomed me as fellow-traveler 
along the joyous, difficult road of our choice, 
and sustained me with your comradship, ever 
loyal and comprehending. 

What disappointments we have faced, what 
satisfactions shared, we know and have pri- 
vately recorded. But what may lie ahead we 
cannot know. And so I write these words of 
dedication to you both, as an inscription of 
friendship on the future, and as a symbol of 
that other unwritten dedication we have made, 
to our art, and to each other. 

Faithfully yours, 

MOHBIS. 



[CONTENTS 

OHAPTEE PAGB 

I Those Alluring Laubentians . . . . 3 

II One Way In 9 

III Lac Archambault 28 

IV Going to the Devil 44 

V From Tache to Tremblant .... 68 

VI A Great Man Unawares 86 

VII Mont Tremblant 103 

VIII Information Only 115 

IX The Laurentides Park and Lake Ed- 

ward 129 

X Maria Chiapdelaine of Peribonka . . 150 
XI How TO Wait in Roberval .... 177 

XII The Beach Life of Pointe Bleue . . 188 

XIII I Go From World to World . . . .199 

XIV The Middle Ages Once More .... 213 
XV Soaring 230 

XVI Statomiskatin-ou 251 

XVII St. Joseph d'Alma the Hospitable . . 259 

XVIII La Grande Decharge 270 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

XIX La Reine du Saguenay 292 

XX The Realm Villeneuvb 306 

XXI The Undiscoveeed Saguenay .... 329 

XXII Epics in Stone ........ 345 

XXIII Tadousac and Thereabouts .... 357' 

XXIV Le Pebe du Saguenay 368 

XXV MoisAN THE Trapper 382 

XXVI Odyssey of the St. Maurice .... 391 

Prologue 
Canto I La Tuque 
Canto II Wayagamack 
Canto III Sanmaur 
Canto IV The Gouin Dam 
Canto V La Tuqxie to Lac Sans Nom 
Canto VI To Grand Pilbs and Lac la Peche 

Epilogue 

Some Practicali Addenda 447 

Index ,. . . . 455 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

A Montagnais JMother Frontispiece 



FACING 
PAGE 



Habitant Home, Old Style 24 

Indian Trapper's Hut, Lacaux Rats 72 

Deep in the Bush 120 

Montmorency Falls 136 

Pulp 17T 

Hudson's Bay Co., Pointe Bleue 192 

Monastere de Notre Dame du Mistassini . . . 225 

Lac aux Rats — and North 240 

The Wandering Mistassibi 258 

''Where the Ouananiche Is Waiting" . . . .289 

Shanty-closing for the Spring 304 

Le Saguenay 337 

Cape Trinity 352 

Forest Fire from Five Thousand Feet .... 369 

The Indian Chapel, Tadousac, 1747 .... 384 

MAPS 

Mt. Tremblant and Environs 40 

The Saguenay and Lake St. John 248 

St. Maurice Watershed 440 



THE LAURENTIANS 



THE LAURENTIANS 

CHAPTER I 

THOSE ALLURING LAURENTLiNS 

THEEE are those who travel carefully, with 
forethought and porters, with guide-books 
and account-books and insurance papers. They 
proceed from place to place without fatigue, are 
prudent -as to companions land long-sighted in re- 
gard to their three meals a day, their eight hours ' 
sleep. Events lie orderly down their calendar, 
and their conclusions are as predictable as an as- 
tronomer's eclipses. Where the hotels are not 
starred they do not go. 

I have no quarrel with such, being myself not 
the first to eschew comfort ; but they, I am afraid, 
will be thrown into a simmer of exasperation by 
this book. For it is a record of things that should 
not be allowed to happen to the accurate tourist. 
It is an account, as truthful as I can remember 
and as frank as I dare say, of a roving com- 
mission tendered by me to myself over a country 
lying just beyond my imagination. 

This country's boundaries are the St. Lawrence 

3 



4 THE LAURENTIANS 

Eiver on the south, the Ottawa on the west, and 
the SagTienay toward the east, with an arrange- 
ment of mystery and mountains, called the Height 
of Land, for northern limit. Within these self- 
set borders I was to be free — free to roam or 
ruminate, to fly or float or foot it as I chose, to 
parley with natives or meditate about them in 
cautious silence. This book is the echo of that 
meditation. Its narrative of meals missed and 
unpremeditated friendships made, of new terri- 
tories seen and happy sufferings muddled 
through, will doubtless seem but one long process 
of unnecessary pain to those who live by itin- 
eraries alone. For, during those months in my 
haphazard Eden, I knew about as much of the 
morrow as a fortune-teller; and cared less, hav- 
ing no one, not even myself, to deceive. 

Of course, even in Eden, one must obey the 
laws, such as the law of gravitation and the rules 
for taking trout. And, even in -Eden, happiness 
is enhanced by the gentle practice of one's voca- 
tion; not to the degree of that hopeless disease, 
busyness — but to the extent of clothing naked 
time with what truths and beauty become it easily. 

The tirst truth learned was this : 

Three hours' progress north from Montreal 
discloses an unobstructed out-path to the Pole. 
Further, three days' search in Canada's finest 
library had not disclosed a single book describing 



THOSE ALLURING LAURENTIANS 5 

this great wonderland of the Laurentian Moun- 
tains. So it seemed an alluring thing to stick a 
note-book in my hip-pocket and a duflBe bag on my 
back and explore this terra non confirmata. I 
took care not to travel with the note-book in hand. 
I had no desire to tabulate all the places that a 
tourist should accomplish in order to say that he 
has done the thing with a clear conscience ; neither 
did I desire that the natives should feel honor- 
bound to perjure themselves for advertisement's 
sake. What I wanted was the double elation of 
nibbling at new lands, and then numbing my hear- 
ers with tales of exploit in them. But rest easy ; 
I more than nibbled, and I shall less than numb. 
Sincerity is the soul of truth. If I have jour- 
neyed skiphazardly, seen superficially, and re- 
ported but a part, yet I have not committed Mun- 
chausen herein. There was too much of true de- 
hght, too much delicious mishap, to require the 
spice of unveracity : But enough of prologue. 

Canada had always been to me, the suburban- 
born, the epitome of all promised lands. From 
the first time that I had looked on her map of 
sparsely named territories stretching north into 
the invisible, and particularly from the time that 
I had first stood on the walls of Quebec and stared 
into the blue passes of the distant Laurentians, 
Canada had beckoned. In those exquisitely er- 



6 THE LAURENTIANS 

ratic moments, when every man stands on Ms Dar- 
ien, I had imagined Hudson's Bay my exploring- 
gromid. During the moie prosaic residue of 
time, Canada remained an inexhaustible feeding- 
ground for my imagination. 

Finally, when the stubborn dream stood in the 
doorway of possibility and beckoned to me, as 
dreams will, I recalled that vision of the blue Lau- 
rentians from Quebec. It seemed luck enough to 
penetrate those passes. When I looked up the 
subject and found that, geologically, the Lauren- 
tian formation covered two million square miles, 
it seemed more than enough. I determined to 
limit my wanderings to the Province of Quebec. 
But even this proved unnecessarily spacious, 
being somewhat larger than the combined area of 
the British Isles, France, Germany, Italy, Hol- 
land, and Belgium. 

In dismay I wrote to Ottawa, asking the kind 
officials of the Geological Survey for help in re- 
ducing their Laurentians to tourist size. They 
offered me the Ottawa-St. Lawrence-Saguenay- 
Height of Land enclosure in which to do my roam- 
ing, together with the maps of those parts of the 
region which had been surveyed. 

These maps stated the proposition from which 
I was to prove my pleasure. For practical pur- 
poses it seemed best to devote myself to a triangle 
whose base was nearly parallel to the St. Law- 



THOSE ALLURING LAURENTIANS 7 

rence from Ottawa to Tadousac at the mouth of 
the Saguenay, roughly four hundred miles long. 
The eastern limit of the triangle, the Saguenay, 
extended up that river and across Lake St. John 
into the wilderness toward Mistassini, say three 
hundred miles, to be intersected by the western 
side of the triangle running northeastward up the 
valley of the Gatineau and across the Transcon- 
tinental at Parent Station and on toward Mistas- 
sini, another three hundred miles. This area of 
say 45,000 square miles, trifling as it was com- 
pared with the total of explorability, seemed suffi- 
ciently generous for one summer. The next thing 
needed was a tentative route, if only for the plea- 
sure of abandoning it. 

It had been much easier for Caesar to divide 
Gaul into three parts than to conquer it; and I, 
too, found dividing easier than connecting. My 
triangle fell apart with great facility, into an ob- 
vious western third (which comprised the country 
between the Ottawa and the waters of the St. 
Maurice), with the watershed of the St. Maurice 
for the middle and with the Laurentide, Lake St. 
John, and Saguenay waters for final third. But 
to join these scattered objectives into a practic- 
able procession of places was a Baedeker-like job 
which made me giddy with map-gazing. Here lay 
a magnanimous land before me. Why should 1 
reduce it to an ignoble system of station-stops? 



8 THE LAURENTIANS 

I had a few hundred days, and a few hundred dol- 
lars. I had also a great desire to put Montreal 
to the south of me. To do this logically I must 
take the train north. So I did. 



CHAPTER II 



ONE WAY IN 



THE train had vacated the Place Viger Sta- 
tion of the C. P. R. and had crossed the first 
few rivers which make Montreal so very much an 
island before I had aroused myself from the coma 
of disappointment which had enveloped me at the 
disruption of some dreams. For I was being 
launched on the wilderness alone, and that after 
having been enticed into it by one of its denizens 
on promise of expert accompaniment. 

It had come about this way : Last summer, I had 
determined not to write another travel-book until 
I could afford to, nor make any more friends for 
the same period. These earnest resolutions took 
place in May. In June my plans for the new 
travel-book with a new friend were not only 
hatched, but chirping all over the place. This 
is told to show that woman can still produce her 
effects at will. 

The lady was one of the busy maternal sort 
at our club who resented the large frequent gaps 
in my education. I did too, but in nothing like 
the way I resented her wise and Christian at- 

9 



10 THE LAURENTIANS 

temps to fill them in. foolish me ! Had I only 
spent the time trying to learn, that I wasted en- 
deavoring to elude, I should by now have been 
well advanced in knitting and French conversa- 
tion and other domestic matters. 

But, anyway, she did me an invaluable turn 
one day by running up and saying; ''Morris dear, 
I have found just the person you ought to know. 
You'll like him." 

*'I 've just resolved not to like anybody for a 
year," I replied. 

''Come, silly. He 's waiting for us with the 
canoe. He 's an Indian, the nicest, most refined, 
attractive Indian you have ever seen. Please 
drop those things and hurry." 

I followed, of course, expecting to see the usual 
thing in grease and gravity, which is termed an 
Indian, squatting in the sand. Instead I saw a 
man of medium height, standing in a canoe and 
taming it for the benefit of some youngsters. 
His mastery of it was as complete and agile as a 
cowboy's control of his pony. When he saw us he 
wheeled the shell with three or four caresses of 
the paddle ; and I saw that he was greaseless, and, 
barring an aboriginal profile, which Greek sculp- 
ture never compassed, scarcely savage. His hair 
was dark and his eyes shone as inscrutably as 
the sons' of the Sphinx should. But a West 
Pointer could not have tempered his manners to 



ONE WAY IN 11 

the occasion more courteously, nor have helped 
our adoptive mama into the canoe with a better 
grace, I was interested ; she was triumphant. 

"Say your Indian name, Fred," the lady com- 
manded. 

' ' Kaiantanoron, ' ' with a half-smile that showed 
teeth, white and regular. 

"And now tell us about the North," she begged 
enthusiastically; "tell us about your people, about 
everything. ' ' 

We hadn't been out twenty minutes before my 
heart began to sink. I felt that I was going to 
hke this person, this educated savage, in whose 
veins ran the old fire of the Iroquois tempered 
with the blood of France. Forty minutes and I 
thought "the region that breeds the like of him 
is worth exploring. ' ' When we came to the carry 
he swung the canoe upon his shoulders as a man 
puts on a hat. 

To cut a long summer short, I came to like 
and admire this man from the land of my imagin- 
ings, whose talk was as a persistent breeze from 
the North. We spent evenings together before 
autumn camp-fires, evenings that brought forth 
shadowy plans running to the accompaniment of 
wilderness waters and the drip of paddles. Fred 
Beauvais' youth had been circled by the calls 
of wolves and hghted by the northern lights. As 
he talked of ouananiche and rapids and strange 



12 THE LAURENTIANS 

Indian ways the toxin of travel fermented in 
my blood. And during the winter it finally boiled 
over and hardened into this proposition: 

**You guide me there beyond the thought of 
things and I '11 pay our paddlefare with a book. 
Is that a go?" 

' ' Sure, ' ' said he. 

''Sure" was Beauvais' great word, the 
French- Canadian in him coming out. 

Now I was on the train, and he was hopelessly 
detained in town. He had said good-by at the 
gate, trying not to see my flannel shirt and the 
white waters ahead of me and the freedom of 
days unharried by the telephone. But I saw 
their reflection in his eyes, and could only make 
up lies about expecting him next week. The fu- 
ture, which had appeared so exhilarating as di- 
vided between us, showed heavy enough ahead 
when it had to be survived alone. The 
train was tearing through fields glad with May, 
but I could not see them glad. I was out of sym- 
pathy with Providence. 

Later I came to see the wisdom of Providence 
which was concerned more with my future than 
with my feelings of the moment. I see 
now that had I journeyed with Fred all the way, 
equipped with his companionship, i should have 
but grazed the surtaces of others mat I met, 
should merely have culled their superficial eccen- 



ONE WAY IN 13 

tricities and difference and left the heart un- 
learned. 

For now I know this : The medium of travel for 
a person on my errand is loneliness. The secret 
of successful travel is not to go from place to place 
but from person to person. The corrugations 
on our planet are much alike and it mat- 
ters little whether a waterfall be fifty feet higher 
than the last. But to pass from man to woman, 
from girl to fellow, each native in his proper niche, 
meeting them as strangers but leaving them as 
friends by virtue of some news, some affinity, 
some hardship, or even some turn of weather 
shared — this is travel, and on a road where per- 
ennial freshness lies. But to travel thus the stem 
condition exists that one must go alone, face dark 
arrivals in strange villages, dare uncompanioned 
distances. Then only will the genius of the neigh- 
borhood be apprehended. Then strangerly kind- 
nesses take on a deep significance and one be- 
comes newly aware of humanity, and also learns 
the peculiar flavor of each environment. So, in 
the end, the lonely are blessed for they see the 
brotherhood of man. 

But that is in the end. In the beginning it is 
the loneliness that is chiefly apparent. On my 
train (a week-end train full of girls in khaki and 
brokers in fishing-kits, with a sprinkling of golfers 
in their usual rapt discussion), I felt that a sight 



14» THE LAURENTIANS 

of Lake Erie falling over a comer of the Himala- 
yas could scarcely repay me for the sensation of 
infantile frustration which was accompanying me 
into this futility, this slipping of the noose of isola- 
tion over my head. Had it not been for boasts at 
home, I think I should have crawled from the 
cars and slunk back. The train was now entering 
the foot-hills of the Laurentians, just in time. 

This branch of the C. P. E., Montreal to Mont 
Laurier, is 150 miles long and in that distance 
offers all things to anybody. Suburbs, fields, 
hills, mountains, wilderness, the Wilderness! 
One can breakfast regally at the Ritz and dine 
divinely with the red gods four hours later in 
virgin dells. A mile from the rails on either side 
one can find places never before employed by 
picnickers for a tin-can holiday. Running out on 
this railroad spur is like climbing back up one's 
family tree; at the end is the primeval. 

Nor do you have to go the whole way, either. 
Beyond Ste. Marguerite you can drop off at any 
station, drive a few miles on roads that taper into 
trails, and there you are with nothing but wilder- 
ness and white sunlight betwixt you and the Pole. 
That, in my opinion, is the supreme claim of the 
Laurentians. For scenery I choose their sisters, 
my Adirondacks ; and for peculiar animals I sup- 
pose that Africa still leads. But for contiguous 
opportunities of freedom in a land, lake-set and 



ONE WAY IN 16 

limitless, and incredibly near at hand, Laurentian- 
land has no rival nowadays. 

There was one very exasperating thing about 
all these merry people on the train; they all 
looked as if they knew where they were going. 
I thought I had brought the necessaries — a duffle- 
bag containing tent for two, blanket, cook-kit, and 
Corona, with a lot of odds and ends and a few 
other things. But I had neglected a destination. 
In a general way Fred and I had discussed the 
places ahead, but we had left the exact point of 
ingress to inspiration. Now it looked as if the 
conductor would get to me ahead of the in- 
spiration. Beginnings are notoriously difficult, 
whether one is tackling a continent or only a 
cracked egg. And I sat there hunting down the 
names of stations, like Sentimental Tommy seek- 
ing the right word, when the conductor arrived. 
Luckily his uniform had not chilled the humanity 
out of him, and we had a chat. 

"If I was you," he said, "I 'd get off at Ste. 
Marguerite. There ^s a golflinJk there, and a 
swell hotel on Lac Masson, just new. We 're 
near there now." 

He pointed out the window across a prodigious 
horseshoe-curve with a huge up-grade at which 
the engine was puffing egotistically. 

''They 're good ski hills," said I," but — " 

''I know what you 're going to say — too sum- 



16 THE LAURENTIANS 

mer-boarder-like. Now at Ste. Agathe, or any- 
wheres on from there, it 's wilder. There 's lots 
of time to think it over. Excuse me, sir. ' ' 

He left me to expedite the Ste. Marguerites 
from the train, and I began thinking it over again. 
But the process helped me no more than it had 
Hamlet. We were soon passing through country 
that had become definitely upland, a forested pla- 
teau with here and there a lake, and near and 
beyond a mountain-ridge, low and bulgy but not 
precipitous. I longed to begin my exploration. 
Once more I unrolled the map. Lakes of every 
shape and dimension curved and wriggled across 
its face, each lake tagged with an alluring name 
— Lac Sauvage, Lac Manitou, Lac Ouareau. I 
had only to descend, to leave the railroad, make 
the plunge, and the trip would be started. With 
a sudden reflex of the cerebellum I gathered up my 
bale of household gods and bolted from the train. 
The station happened to be Ste. Agathe. 

Now, I am sorry if all this gives a wrong im- 
pression, I am a fatalist ; I prefer life a la carte. 
I admit that, so far, the trip had been managed 
with about the push and positiveness of a jelly- 
fish, though I defy a jelly-fish to shoulder that 
duffle-bag. But with my initiative drugged by 
disappointment it seemed quite the sensible thing 
to let things happen to me as they would, or until I 
disagreed with the way in which they were hap- 



ONE WAY IN 17 

pcning and should again assume management. 
As a matter of just due to Providence I must say 
that my day of events table d'hote, apparently 
strung on the slightest chain of chance, intro- 
duced me to the Laurentians more satisfyingly 
than days of the most exhausting inquiry and 
preparation would have done. 

It was now four o'clock of a bright afternoon. 
The Ste. Agathians had deserted the train plat- 
form, and the little town was sinking back into 
its summeriness. In the center of the place there 
rose a hilly pasture with some pleasant cows upon 
it. I decided to go ruminate with them, left my 
dufifle, and started up. 

The cows had chosen an appetizing situation. 
At our feet lay a cottage-fringed lake on the sun- 
set side of the hill and a neat little town on the 
other. It was almost a village-sized town, but it 
possessed a city-sized church, from which metro- 
politan-tongued bells began to rock the trees 
around us. The catholic cows, long used to such 
hubbubs, did not cease to chew, though I should 
think the cream would have curdled in their ud- 
ders. The celebration went on. ''Mercy!" 
thought I, "this is driving rehgion home!" and 
I wondered how the sensitive sick in the sana- 
torium on the distant hills felt about it. When 
the jangling stopped and sudden peace swam 
about us I felt almost sympathetic with the poor 



18 THE LAURENTIANS 

nit-wit in the story, who liked to bang himself on 
the head with a hammer because it felt so good 
when he stopped. 

The cows and I were enjoying an altitude of 
about a thousand feet, and the mountains which 
girdled the horizon appeared to rise that much 
more. The near-by sanatorium looked pictures- 
que and as if Canada was treating her returned 
soldiers well. I imagined that these graceful hill- 
contours made the most restful sort of scenery 
for daily needs, and I remembered that essay of 
Stevenson's beginning, ''By a curious irony of 
fate, the places to which we are sent when health 
deserts us are often singularly beautiful." Ste. 
Agathe is not singularly beautiful, exactly. But 
one cannot look into the outreaching valleys 
wdthout visualizing the breadth and freedom of 
the land beyond, and that idea must be singularly 
beautiful to men strapped to beds. What pasts 
were tucked in those beds, what tales roofed by 
those gray tiles! As I looked down on the shin- 
ing tin of the church I hoped that prayers were 
being said for those soldiers' peace. Such a 
roomy church should inspire great prayers, or 
else much stonework were wasted. 

Since I could not hope that any one was pray- 
ing for my future I opened the map to have a 
go at it myself. I decided to arrive at my des- 
tination scientifically by flipping a coin. It came 



ONE WAY IN 19 

down King Edward! 1 was destined to sleep on 
the other, the north, side of the railroad. About 
the same time a gentlemen of middle age, who 
was looking either for four-leaf clovers or a text 
for a sermon, hove over the hill and began to 
thread his pensive way among the kine. 

''Sir," I said, as sylvanly as I could, ''where 
would you begin, if you were starting out to see the 
Laurentians, on the north side of the railroad?" 

The gentleman rose handsomely to my needs. 
We spread the map over the hill, and on hands 
and knees, with the cows looking over our should- 
ers, reached the conclusion that Lac Archam- 
bault ought to be my starting-point. "Further- 
more," continued Mr. Clifford, "I believe that 
the brothers Thibault, who drive a truck thither, 
have had some mechanical trouble this morning 
and have not left town. Gome with me and we '11 
see." 

The brothers Thibault, it was true, had not left 
town, and it did not look as if they ever would. 
The Ford truck in which they conveyed groceries 
and passengers to St. Donat, the village on Lac 
Archambault, was being treated to repairs. I 
was introduced to Paul, who was hanging over 
the front with his head lost in its midst, and to 
Bmest, whcJ was somewhere beneath the car. 
The boys assured me that they would start in an 
hour. I doubted it, for the car's most sensitive 



20 THE LAURENTIANS 

parts were still strewn around tlie yard; but T 
did n 't care. Now tliat I was equipped with a des- 
tination, nothing else mattered. So I engaged 
passage, and continued with Mr. Clifford to see 
Ste. Agathe. 

''They call Ste. Agathe the Saranac Lake of 
Canada," he«said, in reference to those hospitals, 
''but it is doing the place an injustice to imagine 
that only the sick come here. There are many 
beautiful lakes in the neighborhood, and wealthy 
Montrealers have built by them charming homes 
for winter as well as summer. Many skiing 
parties, many skating parties take place here. 
But since the soldiers have come we lack a large 
hotel." 

I did not lack good food, however, because Mr. 
Clifford has a little inn of his own, and his genial 
helpfulness included a meal against my long ride 
into the unknown. On my way back to the repair 
yards I passed that bell-possessed church and saw 
a sight. It was a handsome, masculine-looking 
young priest playing tennis in his long black robes. 
I stopped and watched in wonderment. He had 
the suppleness of an aspen and the agility of a 
gopher. But when he served, the broad-brimmed 
black hat got in his way, and when he met a return 
his robes wrapped themselves around his legs with 
the effectiveness of a shroud. The evening was 
warm. 



ONE WAY IN 21 

All this would have had an immensely anti-re- 
ligious effect upon my temper, and I '11 confess I 
listened for some sign. But not one un-cleric 
word did he utter, not even when he missed an 
important point by six inches of skirt. He had 
such an honest, fine, perspiring face that I longed 
to ask him why he wore the robes, why he should 
try to serve an ace and the Kingdom of Heaven 
at the same time. As I left I heard a loud rend- 
ing, as of a petticoat, but I did not laugh. Sin- 
cerity, somehow, is rarely funny. 

Nor are the agonies of youth. Paul had 
emerged from the truck's belly, and I saw a boy, 
not yet eighteen, fine-looking despite the fact 
that most of his complexion was lost beneath 
fresh grease, smiling before me. His optimism 
did not falter when I asked him how soon the 
truck would be ready. ''Quinze minutes. Mon- 
sieur. Avez-vous une cigarette?" 

Two hours later we left the tool-cluttered court- 
yard and set forth upon our odyssey, Paul and 
Ernest and I. There were yet some errands 
the boys told me, before the final beginning of 
our trip. Mon Dieu, there were ! Those errands 
• — and may I be stricken like Ananias if I exagger- 
ate — consisted of hoisting some bags of feed upon 
our rear, of arranging a mound of furniture upon 
the feed, of packing some bales of bread into the 
crevices, of calling at a tailor-shop, the post-of- 



22 THE LAURENTIANS 

fice, and some odd shops on sundry commissions. 
I did not see how the invalid truck was going to 
wobble under this load, when, by way of flourish, 
we swung up in front of a hotel to pick up a 
family who had come down from St. Donat for a 
day's shopping. I was, later, to learn much about 
the size of French-Canadian families. A com- 
mencement of this education was now made, for 
out of the hotel came a slight little mother with 
some parcels and a baby in her arms, followed 
by a queue of children, a graduated series of in- 
fants, six in all, all young and infinitely grave. 
Paul rearranged the bread, and they defiled into 
the seat behind, sat down, like a Sunday-school, 
and we were conclusively off. 

Once clear of Ste. Agathe I had scope to ad- 
mire the evening. Twilight had begun to impro- 
vise some serene variations on her eternal theme, 
and far ahead I watched range after range of 
rounded mountains glow and die. The children 
were preternaturally quiet; but not so the truck. 
It coughed and choked and sputtered until my dis- 
quietude overcame the inertia of my French. 

"Do you mean to say, Paul,*' I asked the boy, 
"that you are going to risk twenty-seven moun- 
tain miles in a sick truck, loaded like a moving- 
van, and with a nursery aboard?" 

"Ah, oui!" 

"But what if we 're stuck for the night?" 



ONE WAY IN 23 

*'Nous y arriverons," he said simply. 

To have met the brothers Thibault first was 
the happiest possible introduction to the French 
of Canada. To be able to love, while laughing at, 
a people is surely a sound proof of their worth. 
And that night I was to laugh all over my body at 
those boys and admire them truly. Remember 
they had driven that horrible vehicle twenty-seven 
miles that morning, had operated on its insides 
from noon till dusk, had had an ice-cream cone 
apiece for supper with some cigarettes, and were 
now confronting those twenty-seven miles again 
with gaiety. You can depend upon the Saxon 
for his spunk, upon the Celt for his spirits. 

The slopes now grew intenser, and the old 
boat only crawled as she neared their tops. My 
anticipations were covered with gooseflesh until 
I looked on Paul. In his face there was no fea- 
ture of despair. He had a good chin, like most 
Canadian French, and in the dim light he made 
a shadow-picture of young courage that warmed 
the heart. It was impossible not to like him, im- 
possible to refuse to throw in one's lot with a 
fellow so brave and gay. I did away with doubts 
and resolved to deserve the smile in Paul's eyes, 
resolved to live in the very immediate present. 

My philosophy was soon put to proof, for as 
night fell we failed to make the apex of a hill. 
We began to slide backward. Paul guided the 



24 THE LAURENTIANS 

leviathan skilfully hindwards to a stream, during 
which manoeuver the woman made no sound. 
One prejudges French femininity as being nerv- 
ous and excitable ; but three centuries of Canada 
have calmed her. And those children were a 
revelation to me. They had been waiting hours 
for this most questionable passage; they were 
now being racked in a machine that came nearer 
being a churn than a cradle; they were getting 
momentarily colder. But with the exception of 
the one in arms they sat bolt upright like robins 
in a nest, offering no complaint. I was indeed in 
a new country. 

From the gurgling brook into which we had 
subsided we obtained water for the radiator. 
Ernest did up some wires so that the lights might 
light; Paul leaned beneath the beast to regulate 
something, and not to be outdone I tried to fix 
the horn. Then, after re-roping some of the more 
active furniture, we again essayed the hill. It 
was a breath-paralyzing moment. If we should 
not make it, I foresaw the rest of the night there 
beside the ravening roadside, to be spent in en- 
deavoring to keep those children warm. Ernest 
and I leapt and pushed. The little woman ut- 
tered no word. Paul manipulated the monster 
scientifically, and we topped the eminence by a 
chug. But it was as close as Tophet. 

''Are there more like that?^' I asked. 



ONE WAY IN 26 

''Plusieurs, Monsieur," Paul replied, smiling 
handsomely as he lit a cigarette. 

*'A11 right," thought I, ''if you can smile, I 
shall, too." 

It became a night to remember. We now strip- 
ped to the limits of respectability in order to 
keep the family from freezing to death. The 
Laurentian air began to lick at us with a cold 
tongue. From ravines long streamers of frigid- 
ity darted out at us. We passed lakes, motion- 
less pools of vapor in the starry night, and I was 
conscious of mountains bulking hugely above us 
from time to time. And all the while we climbed. 
The precarious truck snorted and snooped around 
uphill curves until our persistent progress seemed 
dependent on a continuous miracle. We three 
on the front seat huddled together for warmth, 
and between remarks I pictured the career of 
this boy, driving his fifty miles a day through the 
un-garaged wilderness, from melting spring till 
freezing fall. At moments of cigarette light- 
ings I could see his face, now a little paler with 
fatigue, but ever with the fine set of jaw, the 
humorous light, courage or camaraderie or what 
you will, in his eyes. Paul Thibault, whom I 
never saw again, will always live for me in those 
flashings of a match, a medallion on the night, 
a picture on the title-page of my trip, a portrait of 
buoyant youth, French youth, in Canada. 



26 THE LAURENTIANS 

And now the gods let drop a syllable whicli was 
to twist my destiny into its proper path. "Vou- 
lez-vous rester au chalet?" asked Ernest. 

The word *' chalet" sounded hospitable. *'Oui, 
oui," said I, as if it had been my intention for 
the last five years, and I had no sooner spoken 
than the truck, with a final rhinoceros-like lurch, 
scuddled into a winding, tree-arched place that 
looked like private grounds deposited by magic 
in the wilderness, and so up to a hilltop crowned 
with a cottage. 

Immensities seemed grouped around, yawning 
equally below us where earth fell away and above 
where heaven rose. But there was no time to 
muse on this, for, awakened by cessation of the 
eccentric motion, one group of children after an- 
other lifted their voices in a part-song of grief. 

''What is that?" came the not unnatural inter- 
rogation from a tent near-by. 

"Un monsieur qui voyage pour regarder le 
pays," called Paul. An apparition in pajamas 
approached. 

"I 'm a belated traveler hoping for a bed," I 
said. 

''A bed?" 

"Yes, this is not my family." 

"That 's different," said Allan Barr, re- 
lievedly. "I guess we can fix you up, if you don't 
mind sleeping in a tent." 



ONE WAY IN 27 

** A tent, a woodpile, anything that does n't have 
to be cranked or pushed up hill. Just show me 
to it." 

So, with whatever doubts he may have had, he 
took me in. I paid a paltry sum to the chivalrous 
Thibaults and parted with a real regret. It is 
strange how much mutual understanding twenty 
miles of trucking can provide. 



CHAPTER III 

LAC AKCHAMBAULT 

IF first impressions are as potent as supposed, 
then am I hopelessly prejudiced in favor of 
a certain sleeping-site on the pasture-lands of 
Archambault. I had gone to bed surrounded by 
the ambiguities of night. I woke in a canvas- 
filtered incandescence, parted the tent-flaps, and 
was confronted by such a prospect as might greet 
arising angels. 

The threshold of my room was a garden, which 
led to a knolly pasture, wliich fell away into a 
forest, which stood guard about the lake. The 
blue and rippling waters of tliis secret paradise 
lay shadowy in receding coves or changeable with 
sun afar. Shimmering distances carried the 
sight through straits and past islands into a 
mountainous beyond. A great range, or rather 
bouquet of ranges, fifty summits at the fewest, 
filled the north with flowing lines and fleeting 
hues. A lazy cloud here and there brightened 
the solitary sky, informing its mere boundlessness 
with beauty. 

Thus, at a breath, was I vouchsafed that mo- 

28 



LAC ARCHAMBAULT 29 

ment of bright ecstasy which is the North's gift. 
The possibilities of life stood there by my tent 
door on that brilliant morning. I felt the primal 
conception of freedom. Whatever hardships 
might come, they could not obliterate the white 
branding of this exalted moment. I was stamped 
the North's. Should I hide in cities or in mines, 
the joyous uneasiness of it would find me and 
haunt me. As with experienced love so with this 
emotion is the soul forever water-marked. The 
revelation had been made. 

From this spiritual tubbing I hastened to a very 
mortal breakfast, conceived and executed by no 
less than the chef to the Prince of Wales on 
his Canadian tour. It must require much self- 
control to be a prince for long. 

During my stay in the Dominion I was to hear 
much of the Prince — from girls who had outnum- 
bered other girls in the matter of dances; from 
soldiers on whom he had looked twice, whilst 
other social unfortunates had only had one nod; 
from hard-head-and-hearted business men who 
were still enthusiastic. Murray Gibbon, the 
novelist, in giving me a copy of "Maria Chapde- 
laine," mentioned that the Prince had once 
touched it : I prize the book. 

And the reason is, I suppose, that the Canadians 
and I, along with the rest of the human race, are 
still quite young, and the symbol of great things 



30 THE LAURENTIANS 

is still an incitement to our imaginations. I don't 
mind confessing to a glow at the sight of the red- 
coated, armed and spurred young giants of the 
Canadian Mounted Police; not since the days of 
Lancelot has a uniform stood for cleaner law or 
finer romance. And by the same token I am not 
ashamed of a leaning toward princes. 

It seems a prosperous sign for the race that 
men can rest a moment from their interminable 
business while a youth, invested with the fore- 
shadows of royalty, passes by. There is so little 
time for fairy-tale nowadays. It seems a joyous 
thing that the power which is the people should 
still recognize a head with homage. And it is 
glorious to know that there can exist a young man, 
fine-looking and with courage tried, straight- 
thinking and true-acting, who, when elevated to 
the peak of universal regard, can look around 
without growing dizzy from self-consciousness. 
It is a feat of personality, to cross a continent and 
leave a trail of radiance and good-will undimin- 
ished two years after. It is such personality that 
will keep sweet the world. 

Men can still learn from nature. The bees are 
no bolshevists, but must have their royalty. With- 
out men to look up to and admire, our drab de- 
mocracies can only boil and bustle as futilely as 
pots upon a stove. "We shall always need a sym- 
bol of prestige. The Catholic Church has its 



LAC ARCHAMBAULT 31 

cross, the British Empire has its crown, and the 
majesty of wilderness law is clothed in the com- 
pelHng dignity of that mounted police uniform. 
My native Stars and Stripes speak of Lincoln, 
Washington, Jefferson, and Roosevelt rather than 
of the mussy levels of mankind. Our nations will 
be failures unless these great symbols of per- 
sonality are remembered. 

And so I was glad that the Prince in Canada 
liberated the old dreams, recalled the stately 
splendors past, and brought to mind new possibili- 
ties in empire rightly used. I should have loved 
to have seen him — youth for once crowned at the 
outset with attainment, enjoying life's full bloom, 
the stuff of which Cinderella 's dreams were made. 
But since I was too late for that, it was some- 
thing to hear the echoes of his trip, something 
to sit at the table decorated by his ex-steward's 
eggs and marmalade, enjoying simultaneously 
that man's anecdotes and his propensity for 
pleasure-giving breakfasts. 

It was the Chalet St. Donat into which I had 
fallen, a neat cottage with a few cabin camps 
nestled around, blinking in the sun on the hill's 
broad brow. And the first person I met was the 
chaleteer, if that is what you call the person who 
drives a chalet. 

"This," said that vigorous enthusiast, "is the 
finest place on earth. I have not visited them all. 



32 THE LAURENTIANS 

as you have, but I cau still say confidently that 
neither the Andes nor Afghanistan can afford 
a view of fifty-three mountain summits from 
one's porch, each separate summit clothed in 
hard-wood that blazes like nothing you have ever 
witnessed in the autumn. Those mountains yon- 
der are called the Black Mountains because there 
happen to be no dark conifers on them, one of the 
map-makers' little jokes, I suppose, and incident- 
ally a climb you should take. There are many 
others, and trails, countless numbers of trails 
which we have already cleared and are going to 
perfect. You know we have been here only two 
years." 

''Two years!" I gasped, ''Only two — " 

"Two only, and they were by accident. You 
see I was driving by this property by chance, when 
I saw this view, and that very moment I knew 
that I must own it. So I do. And now, if you 
are through breakfast, perhaps you would help 
me with your experience by advising me where 
to put the solarium." 

My experience! I might have been a boiler- 
maker, for all he knew. 

Thus through that stirring Sunday ! The chal- 
eteer's day of rest was spent conducting this 
successful resort for nature-loving citizens. On 
week-days he had other businesses. "Anything 
for motion" was his motto, and even the flowers 



LAC ARCHAMBAULT 33 

in the crannied wall were in danger of transplant- 
ing. With some phrase of flattery for his ful- 
crnm, and a contagious enthusiasm for his lever, 
he kept us in benevolent circulation. But only 
when I had mentioned my errand, seeing the 
Laurentians, did I fully become the toy of his in- 
vincible energy. I was taken swimming by his 
son, walking by his guides, and motor-boating by 
himself. I was canoed up the Black Kiver, a wind- 
ing bit of loveliness that offered ''a picture a min- 
ute" (thus coming up to the chaleteer's specifica- 
tions). I was conducted to the top of a great cliff 
on Archambault and down again ; rowed to a rasp- 
berry island lying at anchor in mid-lake, like a 
low green battleship which later would be 
freighted with blueberries. I was shown to the 
maple-grove hundreds of j^ears old, some of the 
trunks being twelve and fifteen feet round, to the 
farm, the dance-hall, the village, the camp-fire. 
And to bed. 

Even through the morrow I was delightedly 
kept a-going, though the master-motor had de- 
parted, which proves that the impetus of great 
men may live after them. The excursion was an 
all-day one to Lac Ouareau, a low-hilled body of 
water, the shape of South America, Cape Horn 
and all, whose Brazil elongated into a stream 
whence, said Jules, one could go on indefinitely 
into other lands. Jules was our guide. Further- 



34 THE LAURENTIANS 

more he was the personage of St. Donat, game- 
warden, forester, farmer, trapper, fur-trader, 
and man about town. He had grown inured to 
outdoor hardships by his home-life, which was 
conducted in a shack so thoroughly ventilated as 
to make the use of its few boards seem almost 
negligible. 

I think it was Jules 's interesting inclusiveness 
of life-work which inveigled me into my next 
move, a mixed camping trip which I shall at once 
never forget nor repeat. It came about so 
smoothly that I was quite compromised before 
I knew it. We were eating lunch on the rocks 
at the entrance to Lac Ouareau, the five of us 
(an ingenuous, high-strung chap named Mar- 
shall Hall, an Amazon, with husband, Jules and 
I) and beneath the bland spell of our ham-sand- 
wiches and coffee some one said how nice it would 
be to take a camping trip. I remarked that I 
would have to soon be on the move. Some one 
else ventured that we might start on the morrow. 
Without reflecting how risky the action was, I 
pulled out the map, and the trip was as good as 
settled on. 

Now the map in question is entitled ''Regions 
de Colonisation, Haut Gatineau, Labelle et Nord 
de Montreal." It was issued in 1915 and can 
be obtained from the Ministere de la Colonisation 
des Mines et des Pickeries, Quebec. It is a map 



LAC ARCHAMBAULT 35 

that, at sight, would change anybody with the 
slightest taste for adventure into a wanderer. Its 
romantic areas of lemon-colored lands are inter- 
spersed and edged with blue and intricate lakes 
which lap seductive shores of mountains mauve 
and pink. Elvers entice one hither and thither 
across surfaces sown with exquisite names. I 
am sure that the Quebec Government, which is so 
anxious to procure patronage for its empty places 
without the attendant expenses of publicity, could 
do no better than to fling this map broadcast. 

^ ' Let 's go, ' ' said the Amazon ; ' ' I 've never been 
camping in my life." 

'' Neither have I," said Marshall Hall, "let 's 
doit." 

"For days and days," continued the strong 
woman. 

"But dear," said her husband. 

"You '11 guide us, won't you, Jules?" she, in- 
terrupted, overpoweringly. 

"Correc','' said Jules, which corruption com- 
prised his English vocabulary. 

"And we '11 let Mr. Book-writer choose the 
route," she concluded, throwing this sop to my 
silence, I suppose. 

I know not what imp in me nodded assent — 
whether the cruel pleasure of watching hus- 
band follow his spouse through burn and swamp, 
or the unholy joy of witnessing three neophytes 



36 THE LAURENTIANS 

take to the woods. Or perhaps it was young 
Hall's genuine delight in this new freedom; for 
it turned out that he was a dancer at the Metro- 
politan, let loose from pantomime for the first time 
into the shimmering outdoors. He looked too 
slight for canoe-carrying or the strain of sleep- 
less nights; but his notice of the subtler things, 
the stir of the wind along the rice-grass and the 
shift of color down the isle-set lake, made me 
want to see him on the trip. And the strong 
lady would make such contrast, her husband such 
comedy ! We spread the map and gazed. 

Jules pointed out a string of lakes arranged by 
nature for this very undertaking, his enthusiasm 
bubbling out in French that was about as in- 
telligible to us as so much soda-water. But we 
gathered that it would take three days to the 
end of the chaiUj and so, forsaking the beauties of 
Ouareau as one forsakes/ the dinner-table, we 
hastened back to the chalet. The Amazon spent 
the afternoon sewing up a skirt in lieu of trouser- 
ettes, Hall in asking me what I thought he 
ought to take, Jules in bagging victuals for the 
party. Theo, the husband, kept out of sight. 

Marshall Hall's inquiries on the clothes ques- 
tion reminded me of my own previous agonies. 
Women, as some careful observer has said, dress 
merely to annoy one another. But men, I swear, 
buy clothes and put them on from an even baser 



LAC ARCHAMBAULT 37 

motive, the fear of seeming funny. One glance 
at a roomful of men in any summer city is clear 
proof that we have not the courage to be comfort- 
able. 

Before setting out I had spent a prodigious 
amount of thought (and no little violence of emo- 
tion) in planning how to avoid the ridicule of 
strangers. In order to be comfortable among 
the Indians I wanted to wear knickers and a flan- 
nel shirt; in order to be acceptable to cities I 
had to dress in anything but knickers and flannel. 
Whenever I emerged temporarily from the wilder- 
ness I must emerge also from indelicate boots. 
It took some planning to have dainty attire at 
hand to greet me at every trail's end. For the 
sake of those who may want to do the same thing 
(and at Avhatever cost to other people's patience), 
I append the fact that this scheme worked: I 
shipped one outfit, consisting of white shirts, bow- 
ties, and all the other palpable evidence of my 
being a gentleman, in a suit-case from pillar to 
post by express. The other, containing the 
comforts of savagery, was packed in a duffle- 
bag. 

A duffle-bag is to the woodsman what an old- 
fashioned attic was to our grandmothers. Into 
this cylindrical carryall, eighteen inches across 
by forty high, one can eram everything that is 
needed for a year in the woods, bar food, and 



38 THE LAURENTIANS 

still find room. It is waterproof. It' can be a 
partial sleeping-bag. It carries easily with a 
tump-line. 

Into this charitable vault I packed a tent of 
green waterproofing large enough for two, an- 
other tent of cheese-cloth for the flies, a large 
blanket, a cook-kit for three, an ax, a fishing- 
rod, a Corona typewriter, and all the delicates- 
sima of soups and shaving-creams and such that 
tinge the natural comforts of the woods with lux- 
ury. With one's household under one's arm, a 
man feels a very prodigy of independence. Add 
a rubber-blanket, a rifle, and another blanket, and 
one is equipped, forsooth, for anything. 

I shall kindly omit other details of our getting 
off. 

Tuesday's astonished sun looked down upon as 
strange a launching as had probably ever dis- 
turbed the waves of Archambault. Jules had pre- 
pared an antique canoe, monstrous enough to hold 
the five of us and our duffle, to convey us 
to our first portage. On the other lakes, he as- 
sured us, there were boats. The land into which 
we were voyaging was his domain, and having 
a summer of my own planning on my hands I was 
glad to let three days of it to Jules. His stocky 
swarthiness had an air of confidence, as well it 
need, for he had never guided such a total of 
amateurishness in his life. Jules, I'll say right 



LAC ARCHAMBAULT 39 

here, never abated the twinkle in his eye or the 
little black pipe in his mouth from start to finish, 
despite the abnormalities of his party and their 
unusual ways of manifesting themselves. And 
right here, also, I want to say that in this book I 
am going to indulge myself in frankness. Mine 
was a halcyon summer, full of heaven, though 
seasoned to taste with hell; and during it I met 
those to love and those to laugh at. So wherefore 
should I coat everybody with the marshmallow 
paste of flattery? Why call an Amazon a butter- 
fly? There is small use in holding the mirror up 
to nature if only to distort her; and I intend to 
hang only pictures true as I can paint in the 
crowded gallery of remembrance. Look close 
and you will see a fellowship of mellow hearts. 

It was a morning of northwest breeze, blue 
skies, and bending birches. I was bow paddle, 
Jules stern, and between us was heaped, like a 
statuesque allegory of Plenty, the Amazon, sur- 
rounded by Husband, Hall, and an incalcul- 
able quantity of accessories. The very incongru- 
ity between the picture and my notion of a camp- 
ing trip was exhilarating ; fun was ahead, even if 
comfort lay behind with the chalet that was glim- 
mering its last above its pasture. Behind the 
chalet those Montagues Noires, still unclimbed, 
rose and beckoned. But I could not sigh; I 
had n 't breath enough. For the first time in my 



40 THE LAURENTIANS 

life I was paddling guide-wise, and it left me with 
a singular deficiency of wind. 

All my life I had paddled a canoe; but now I 
was to learn how. The canoe in Canada is at 
once horse, foot, and trolley-car — the one vehicle 
of transportation. As driven by the Indian or 
the French-Canadian guide with quick, noiseless 
half-strokes instead of the long graceful pull to 
which my leisure-loving muscles had been trained, 
the canoe becomes a space-devourer. The meaty 
part of the usual gesture is all that is utilized 
and the boat goes pouring along, like water down 
a stream, incessantly. You cover forty, fifty, 
sixty miles a day if the wind be clement. And 
any one who imagines that the Indian is a crea- 
ture who fritters away existence in a state of 
hopeless languor is invited to go paddling with 
him. He is not concernejd with the poetry of mo- 
tion; he is concerned with getting somewhere. 
And worse, he has his favorite side to paddle on 
and will not change. I know of nothing so con- 
stant or so tireless, short of the side-wheeler. 
And, until you get used to it, nothing is so tiring. 
Our long boat, once in motion, sped as easily as a 
small canoe ; but it left me no wind to babble with. 
Not that my conversation was necessary; the 
Amazon was reviewing a list of relatives and 
friends she wished could see her thus, and Mar- 
shall was verbal with appreciation of the scene. 



L AB E LLE 




V I /(J) ^^jjrVNla^e 

\ / /Jr — M ^ Labelle 

^'~ ' L)' -jrL-,A--Oo^^-^cAupiLacxTremblant .' 

/' 



vitej ^ 






.vW'^ .N. 



/ 




'Morisson 
/ 
f-i SfFausfinfX^ /-sLSupet^eun 

I ^ St.lfaustin ^^^ lyciuperieur 

/ /L...„ / "^'^W^^cLs. MONTCALM 

bois ^^Ouenoutlles^ St».i^ricole 

*L On^nal 
\^ 

\ 1^^ /Crfaux'^N-,\ Donat 



^^ \ ^' < Ldeiikh-^ '\^ ^X / ^ St. Donat 

Moulin Behsle ^ ^ A^— -\ \ Lac Ouareaup 

y Sfe. Lucie > ' // 

y / 

.^ — , ' 



: MT. TREMBLANT AND ENVIRONS 



LAC ARCHAMBAULT 41 

Husband aione brooded silently over it with ap- 
prehension. 

The prospect was indeed wrought mtli an ir- 
regular wild beauty, sweet with solitude and sun, 
that penetrated one like music. White-laced 
waves fled toward the shore on the right where a 
road, visible now and then, strayed lonesomely 
along for the purpose of releasing men into the 
wilderness ahead. On the left rose mountains, 
flight after flight of them, spread with forest to 
their marching tops. All was sun, all was motion, 
and in spite of the countless lakes that I have 
looked on since, none has made an image of 
clearer beauty on my memory than that brilliant 
picture of racing Archambault. And this de- 
spite the squeaking of my muscles. 

After jerking my paddle to and fro for an hour 
in my attempt to catch the exact rhythm of silent 
Jules, we passed an island, or rather a pair of 
islands connected by a cobbled causeway, and 
peopled by priests, the Fathers of the Sacrament 
off on their vacation. It was a relief to me to 
know that they took one. A black-robed young 
man, girt as in Biblical illustrations, was doing 
the wash. Another was pacing the beach, reading 
his fill of prayers, I suppose, from a little black 
book. The whole atmosphere of this sanctuary 
was one of pious prosperity and seemly comfort. 

Suddenly my imagination was electrified; for. 



42 THE LAURENTIANS 

as we rounded the islet, I caught sight of a great 
rowboat down the green distance, manned with 
eight priestly rowers, four to a side, with another 
black-robe at the tiller. It was a picture from 
Parkman, these dark oarsmen of the Apocalypse, 
bent in a somber ardor at the oars. Instantly 
I visualized those ages past when the cassocked, 
wide-hatted Jesuits obeyed the promptings of the 
next world and ventured forth through the ghastly 
wilderness of this. Here was a page from the 
great historian come to life. I saw, not these, 
but those of yesteryear setting out on their tre- 
mendous mission of baptizing a continent. 

They in whom the power of reverence is not 
dead, should read the lives of the Jesuits who, 
from an almost insuperably conflicting world, 
carved Canada. On his vivid screen Parkman 
has thrown a motion picture of events that hold 
the schoolboy or the octogenarian. To read him 
is to appreciate the past, and to appreciate is to 
wonder at the heroic in its most unselfish guise. 

Indeed, it is beyond the modern to conceive 
what toil, what hardships, filth and famine, insult 
and loneliness those educated men, who roamed 
the wilderness in 1636, endured. To penetrate 
beyond the northern fringe of civilization to-day 
is not to enjoy mere slothful ease. Even with 
trusted guides, prepared foods, maps, medicines, 
and other palliatives, a man rarely emerges from 



LAC ARCHAMBAULT 43 

the bush inflamed with luxury. Then consider the 
self-impelled martyrs of other days. They were 
surrounded by a sea of Indians with, at best, un- 
certain tempers. They were confronted by per- 
sonal danger in every form. Their mother, 
France, as ever frugal, yielded them the minimum 
of support. Yet singly, or by twos, they threaded 
wildernesses still unmapped to-day, painstakingly 
learned languages not yet understood, and dared 
the frenzies of sorcerers and knaves in order to 
secure their souls for paradise. However mod- 
erately the modern man (whose energies are 
chiefly directed toward procuring conveniences 
for his family) — however moderately he may rate 
the value of those past enthusiasms, he will still 
have to honor the selflessness that begot them, 
and the courage that carried them out. One 
can read of others' hardships with wonderful 
equanimity; but to go through with them our- 
selves, that .is another matter — or so I thought as, 
with slightly aching muscles, I gazed on the black- 
robed men of God bent on their distant course 
down Archambault. 



CHAPTER IV 

GOING TO THE DEVIL 

I NOW began to pray for a portage. And this, 
let me tell you, is not often done. Normally 
Heaven is beset with prayers against portages. 
But I had pushed much water behind the canoe 
and my vitals yearned for rest. It seemed that my 
biceps were lamenting loudly enough to be heard 
by the others and commented on. But they were 
busy, Marshall joying aloud in his uncaged de- 
light and being interrupted by the Amazon's ready 
recollections of irrelevant things. Husband was 
worried lest it rain. 

La Corniche, a bold beautiful dim headland in 
the west, had been left behind, the Fathers of the 
Sacrament had faded to the south, the explor- 
able little St. Michel River running from four un- 
named lakes could not detain us. Like an ocean 
liner, we passed a shoal with a flag on it and, 
turning, got the wind. An Amazonian shriek dis- 
persed the peace of things as a little wave sloshed 
on her. She remembered that, despite her new 
trousers, she was a woman and ought to be afraid. 
Alas, she wasn't afraid but pretended that she 

44 



GOING TO THE DEVIL 45 

was, which was infinitely more fearful. On this 
tack the wavelets were rather sloppy, the wind was 
gustier, and it did seem the part of caution to 
run in to the village of St. Don'at. Meanwhile 
the Amazon's feigned fears had engendered a 
real terror in her spouse, who began to revile 
canoes as such, particularly our own. I reminded 
liim that it was the water that drowned people 
and not the canoe; but the distinction did not 
cheer him. I told him that twice I had been up- 
set in automobiles and never from a canoe; but 
this only suggested the law of averages to him. 
Some time I should like to prove that a canoe is 
the safest vehicle of enjoyment we possess, far 
safer than the dinner-table; but now we are 
beaching the craft at St. Donat. 

This village is an outpost, the farthest peg that 
civilization has driven in this direction. There 
was something symbolical in the direct way in 
which the road from the lake led to a boardwalk 
which led straight into the church. The white 
spire was more insistent than the heavens. Turn 
to the left for the wilderness, to the right for the 
saloon, but if you turn at all you do it in the face 
of the Church. In the backwoods villages a lost 
soul has no excuse. In fact one can escape salva- 
tion only by an act of will. 

In St. Donat beauty lags behind religion. 
Some day I hope that Paul Thibault will be mayor 



46 THE LAURENTIANS 

and plant some trees; for, with a little planning 
and some paint, St. Donat could be made one of 
the most beautiful living-places on earth. While 
the others ransacked the post-office, which was 
also Banque Pronvinciale and general store, for 
post-cards, I sat on the church steps for my back's 
sake. I have rarely enjoyed a rest so much, and 
I am sure my back never has. It soon ceased 
groaning and slandering the Laurentians, and in 
ten minutes every vertebra was quiet, allowing 
me to store away that view. The sun was at 
noon, high in the summer-brilliant roof of day. 
White clouds towered over the west. The great 
span of sky and the wide sweep of mountains 
liberated a breadth of feeling which the ordinary 
commotion, which we call living, cramps and ob- 
scures. My soul was thinking, or rather inspir- 
ing. I had that delicious sense of rest from labor 
which is worth much labor to attain; and as I 
sat there, drenched with sun and serenity, I 
blessed the Mother of Nature who had tuned my 
senses to such calm enjoyment before setting me 
on these paths of pleasantness. I felt sorry for 
the lack-luster lives of those who never venture 
a day's journey beyond the zone of walls. 

Why travel? For experience' sake. The up- 
lift of that nooning on the wind-swept hill car- 
ried me farther than a year in libraries would 
have done. To be sure, reading is painless, and 



GOING TO THE DEVIL 47 

those who travel do often so with tears, or their 
equivalent in oaths. Particularly those who 
travel north are spared none of the mortalities. 
Cold and fatig-ue and memories of smoother days 
passionately remind a man that he has turned 
fool. But let him once win sight of his frontier, 
once experience the valiant openness of the North, 
and he knows that his has been a wise folly. 
The messengers of space bring him new desires 
of which he cannot speak, and strange satis- 
factions find him out on the wings of certain 
\\T[nds. Those who have been North will know 
what I would say; to the rest all explanations are 
but words, as meaningless as vocabularies. 

We had a shocking lunch, so fly-covered and 
slovenly as to steel all hearts against hotels and 
prepare us for the outdoors with a vengeance. 
The elements at worst are none of our fault ; but 
flies are inexcusable. 

The wind made a division necessary. Jules 
and I took the canoe to the dam at the entrance 
to Lac Union, which is but a continuation of Ar- 
chambault, whither the rest walked, and where we 
reembarked, soon to enter the Pambina River, ob- 
vious enough ahead. 

And now I was to see of what stuff our diverse 
family was made. That lunch had taken the 
taste for civilization even from Husband, and 
the wind had blown away from us our memories 



48 THE LAURENTIANS 

of home. Consequently when the Pambina 
shoaled up on us (for the spring had been al- 
most rainless), it did not seem outrageous to bare 
our feet and wade the sandy bottom, towing. 
Madame Amazon sat her barge, like some crude 
Cleopatra of a land more savage than Egypt, urg- 
ing her husband to severer tugging. Marshall 
and I gloried in our infant-like delight of wading, 
and Jules uttered harmless directions jn pipe- 
French, that final mouthy disguise of the lan- 
guage. 

It was fun, fun; and the foolishness of it was 
beginning to weave our dissimilar natures into 
a common sympathy. Laughter is the common 
denominator of mankind, I think. Laugh to- 
gether and the league of nations will follow. 
I suspect the man who will not laugh with me. 
And I had rather he laugh at me than not at all. 
He often accepts this alternative, I might add. 

Even Jupiter Pluv joined in and laughed from 
a tall cloud till his tears rained on us, and we 
found lucky shelter in an old saw-mill at the 
dam, half-way along the three miles to Lac Oui- 
met. 

It was on the right shore of Ouimet that we 
saw the last house of civilization, which reminded 
Amazon of a second cousin to whom she had not 
sent a card. This entrance into the final wilds 
gave Marshall as much joy as Peary must have 



GOING TO THE DEVIL 49 

felt in watching the North Pole take shape be- 
fore him. Adventure is relative, as any one will 
admit who has groped about his cellar of dark 
nights. 

Our course across Ouimet was about north- 
west, and we soon entered Lac Prevost River, 
leaving the ghastly trunks of a recent burn, and 
winding among the new greens of second growth. 
Here, without the stress of waves and sheltered 
from the breeze of dying afternoon, I felt that I 
could go on forever. My second wind had dis- 
placed all sense of moderation, as often happens 
on the first day out. It is possible to take things 
gently on the first day out; but have you ever 
met the man who did? The first smell of free- 
dom, the first taste of distance, and one's intelli- 
gence is straightway overcome. An immortal 
fervor urges one on, although one 's mortal frame, 
one knows, will pay for it. This thing of devour- 
ing lakes had got me, then. 

The sun had come around the corner of a cloud 
when we surprised La Riviere Noire running from 
the deserted forest and its highland home. It 
shone in the new light there on the west, and our 
pleasure in meeting it made the mile from Lac 
Ouimet seem very short. And now we entered 
Lac Prevost, a narrow hill-ridged lake about two 
and one-half miles long. On the left, about a 
third of the way up, there is an old lumber-camp, 



50 THE LAURENTIANS 

where we might have stopped. But Jules had in 
mind a lean-to further on; and as that appealed 
to Hall as more like the camping he had read of, 
we faltered not, arriving near the mouth of Ri- 
viere Lac He du Pin. 

''La peche," said Jules, and instantly the most 
frantic excitement prevailed. We were actually 
to catch our supper. To Marshall, especially, this 
was the acme of romance, comparable, I suppose, 
only to the feelings of a cave-man eating his first 
charlotte russe. 

It was a perfect place for fish, the dark cold 
waters of the entering stream making mysterious 
places around snags. Jules tied on two flies, Mar- 
shall flicked them toward the sedgy shore, and 
mon Dieu Prestissimo! two fish with but a single 
thought chose their respective hooks and hanged 
themselves thereon. It is exciting enough to 
angle with a fly for the first time in your life ; it 
is more exciting to get a rise at your first cast. 
But to catch twins at the first gesture is too much. 
It is bound to dwarf the future of your sport. 
It is harder to learn patience later, also. Mar- 
shall, I fancy was disappointed because only one 
trout responded to his second cast. 

At number four the fishes unanimously sulked. 
Jules changed the flies, putting on toothsome con- 
coctions which you would think would lure a 
fish from the furthermost horizon. But not a 



GOING TO THE DEVIL 61 

fin. Wliether the sun, by sinking one inch, had 
ended their day ; or whether the dying beauties in 
the canoe had coded danger as they left the 
waters, who can know! But we had three pounds 
of trout, and the vast assurance of a first success. 

The next half-hour bathed us in rich beauty. 
The little river, scarcely six yards wide, bore us 
through the hush of reeds and bushes, that scraped 
our sides now, or now opened in a pretty curve, 
and finally led us to its shapely source, Lac He du 
Pin. The clouds were folding their misty wings 
and settling, like great feathered fowl, for the 
night, and the last sun flooded the low shores 
with level light. I searched the water-edge for 
moose. Jules said that he had slain many on the 
mountain at the far end of the lake. 

I pass the night, which, like all first nights out, 
was nearly sleepless. By morning everybody 
looked the hard habitant and camper, with Hus- 
band the most joyous of the crew. Life in the 
large was not proving half so fearful as he feared, 
and the charms of savagery were beginning to 
seep through his city-calked habits. I think he 
did not wash his face. In the Amazon less change 
was apparent; less change was necessary. She 
had determined to be happy from the first. A 
night of giggling, unsoft bed and heat — for Jules 
had overdone the fire — had brought no regrets, 
had stimulated rather her habit of expressing 



52 THE LAURENTIANS 

passing fancies. The Amazon was cursed with 
memory. Marshall would be raving about the 
rain-wind or Arcturus or some fair distant view, 
when she would inject a pointless memoir about 
her grandmother's piano or the like. This be- 
came my chief delight. It could all be counted 
upon — the poetry, the piano, and the percussion. 
But I anticipate. 

At Lac He du Pin we left our ark and struck 
out on our first portage, which runs from back 
of the cabin over a spur of the mountain about a 
mile to Lac aux Eats. The trail is plain and easy. 
About half-way Jules halted and led us to a cas- 
cade of the Eiviere aux Rats, a lovely series of 
falls totaling fifty feet and milk-white in the 
morning sun. We found our boat at trail's end 
and pushed our way across the small grassy 
double pond, at the far end of which the trail to 
Lac Clair begins. 

And now it seemed that an outraged heaven 
was raining portages on me who had dared, yester- 
day, to pray for one. Carrying goods in Canada 
is done by means of the tump-line; and as one's 
neck does not immediately crystallize into gutta- 
percha, it raises piercing objections to the bar- 
baric treatment it is subjected to. Mine was howl- 
ing behind both ears. But to understand my 
neck you must first understand tump-lines. 

The tump is a strip of leather, two or three 



GOING TO THE DEVIL 63 

inches wide, that tapers into straps cut usually 
about six feet long. These straps are tied around 
the accessories of pleasure you think necessary 
for your trip. Then the thing is suspended from 
one's brow a little above where your hair begins 
to part. Much as I hate the tump I have to admit 
that it is the most efficacious way of transporting 
freight through a wilderness. It beats the back- 
pack thrice over. The weight, you see, is distri- 
buted along the spinal column. It is adjustable 
by a touch of the hand. It can be thrown off 
easily if you are falling. It is fashioned of sim- 
plicity itself, and an Indian or seasoned French- 
Canadian can walk off with unbelievable weights, 
actually thinking little of a burden of two hun- 
dred pounds thus suspended, sometimes with a 
canoe to top the pile. The tump-line is the thing, 
and one might as well gnash one's teeth and sea- 
son up. But the seasoning process is the devil. 
Until you are broken in, the tump method can 
provide more agony to a sensitive neck than is 
usually supposed possible outside the dentist's 
chair. 

But now I was to find solace in another 
mode. Marshall had assumed, in a fit of generos- 
ity, the bread, the fishing-rods, and a kimono, 
which the Amazon had forgotten to pack — the 
whole not much for weight, but an amazing total 
of wickedness. The rods had not been taken 



54. THE LAURENTIANS 

down, since Jules had said that the way was short 
and bon. Compared with later carries it was 
both of these, but if any one desires to visualize 
Marshall's manoeuvers let him pitch a pack of 
fifteen loaves of bread across one shoulder, tuck 
a kimono under one arm out of mud's way, and 
direct through the forest two quivering rods each 
of which is trying to tag the passing trees. T 
followed, forgetting the prejudice of my neck 
against more torture. The tip of one rod would 
run up into a spruce like a kitten and hang on. 
Marshall would back till the bread butted into a 
tree. Meanwhile the other rod had snatched hold 
of a fir, and the kimono would slip, slip. It was all 
vacation to Marshall; he had the temper of a 
stroked terrier. This saved his sanity, which 
after all is the valuable part of a man, without 
spoiling the performance for me. 

Once ferried over the Lac aux Rats we came to 
the trail to Lac Clair, which in a wet season must 
be very bad indeed, and we began a serious bit 
of bush-going. The way was overgrown, and we 
had no sooner left a marsh than we came to a 
mountain, which at the half-way stage supplied us 
with a spring of delicious water. 

I would not tarry over this tour in such school- 
boy fashion saying ^'next and next and next," if 
I did not believe that some day soon the riches of 
this territory would be utilized by many hoping 



GOING TO THE DEVIL 56 

for a wdldeniess holiday. To find a piece of 
country so wild, so picturesque, so full of game 
and fish, and so miraculously near to Montreal 
was a perpetual surprise to me. It is true that 
almost within sight of that city, as quite within 
sight of Quebec and Ottawa, there are famous 
precincts for the sports. But all are under lease, 
or all the best. Yet here we were, within an 
hour (by 'plane) of Mount Eoyal itself, where 
the lake sands were pitted with the tracks of 
moose and the lakes themselves were roiled with 
rising fish. Doubtless, soon, some group of men 
mil rope this region off; but until they do, it can 
provide the whole gamut of wilderness joys for 
the price of two days' journeying. 

Noon and Lac Clair and lunch conspired to 
make us forget the two-mile past. There was a 
cabin by the sand and a cloud across the west; 
and we voted that remaining there was discreet 
as well as comfortable. It is remarkable what 
relief such a decision can give, particularly to a 
tumped neck. I was tired, but I did not worry 
on the future for that reason ; for it is the surest 
of all forest axioms that the price of admission 
into the wilderness life is a period of fatigue. 
Always with me, the first day is glory, the second 
gloom. Always the first day moves to godlike 
music and the hours shine in uplifted arc from 
dawn till turning in. Then, on the second, peni- 



56 THE LAURENTIANS 

tential groans. I task myself with interroga- 
tions: Wliy did I leave home? For what rea- 
son have I incurred such a life? Wherefore en- 
dure such suffering, such stiffness longer? And 
there are other morbid questionings. But that 
night I sleep well; spring waters wash the civic 
longings off, and I emerge on the third day from 
the egg of dejection a new man, callous and 
triumphant. Thence on, rains and fatigue and 
famine are as natural as night, and readily en- 
dured for morning's sake. It is easy to be 
redoubtable, unflinching, cheerful; or if not easy, 
necessary, which is the same to minds rested by 
the sanity of sunshine. 

The Laurentians are mountains of a comfort- 
able house-broken sort. Not one of them impor- 
tunes you with peaks and pinnacles to assault. 
Not one confounds your senses or twists your 
reason with a hurly-burly grandeur. They are 
the kind of mountain that you like to have just be- 
yond the garden. They are as cozy as a kitchen, 
often — old and magnanimous and worn with the 
weathers of all time. Most geologists agree that 
they are the oldest ranges of the globe, and even 
the counter-geologists, who mumble about recent 
infusions from below, put the period far enough 
back to be impressive. Certainly they wear their 
age as becomingly as an old lady her wrinkles. 
They satisfy the soul's longing for breadth and 



GOING TO THE DEVIL 67 

height, and they offer her the inimitable beauty 
of antiquity. They soar enough to lift the spirit, 
yet low, too, like a pensive crow. They are full of 
contours that surprise and secret places that re- 
freshed with little streams. The Laurentians are 
beautiful for their un-self-consciousness. They 
demand no praise. They offer a prospect fa- 
miliar and comprehensible, and yet so vast as 
never to be wholly comprehended, making one's 
heart grateful to them past forgetting. 

To Marshall and me, after a dose of Jules 's 
tea, which was strong enough to raise the dead, it 
seemed suitable to climb one of the surrounding 
mountains in order to spy out the land. Jules 
unearthed an old canoe from the .bushes, pointed 
out Bear Mountain, the chief eminence at the other 
end of the lake, told us to look for the trail where 
a "Si Vous Voyez du Feu Eteignez-le" sign was 
tacked to a cedar. We issued invitations to the 
others, but tempered ones, for I wanted Marshall 
to have one afternoon of forest stillness unpricked 
by the needles of reminiscence. Appreciation 
is the pay for pains, and it was worth pains to 
show him a beaver-sign or a bear-scratched tree 
because his delight was so genuine. One of the 
greatest pleasures of this world is initiation. To 
watch my Indian Fred find Shakespeare in ''The 
Taming of the Shrew, ' ' or even to show the sweet 
uses of a balsam-tree to a city-dweller, is to bring 



58 THE LAURENTIANS 

back one 's own old thrill intensified. Husband 
had blisters, so we went alone. 

May and June are the bird months of the North- 
ern wilds. Though mid-afternoon is their quiet 
time, yet the reed-singers, and the flocks of chirp- 
ing, whistling, warbling folk were busy. Whisky- 
jacks had already found our camps profitable, and 
terrific woodpeckers signaled to the four quarters 
that they were getting grubs. Ducks and shel- 
drakes swam before us, and a loon, sensing our 
virtue, did not dive. We found the sign, the 
blazes, and the mountain-top, which culminated in 
a lusty white pine, into the sides of whom we 
drove nails wherewith to climb. This is a neces- 
sary wrinkle in Laurentian-land, for few of the 
summits are bare enough for views. Nails and 
rope are two essentials of a woods-goer's kit. 

Our tree gave us fifty feet of vantage for our 
view, and every foot a 'mile. Immediately ahead 
lay Lac Ours and Lac Plat, this last a trinity of 
ponds, while a dazzle of silver-shimmer toward 
the setting sun was Lac Beaulieu on the map. To 
the right of Beaulieu was an exquisite bit of water 
not on the map, which Jules calls Lac du Diable, 
after our Puritan method of attributing every- 
thing pleasant to the devil. A fortnight later 
the primeval forest lying between us and Lac du 
Diable was burned over, but the slopes of Bear, 



GOING TO THE DEVIL 69 

and our pine, escaped. And I advise the effort 
up tliat tree ; I hope the nails will hold. 

Lac Tache, our terminus, was hidden behind 
a range or two. This immediately piqued my 
curiosity. From the moment I had seen the map 
I had conceived a desire to go to the Devil, that 
alluring river which flows from Tache, and fol- 
lows it to the railroad. With the present party 
this was impossible, of course, for we had too 
little food and too much fat along, even had we 
had the proper canoes. But I determined to see 
Tache, to note the size and speed of the out-flow- 
ing river, to reconnoiter the place marked '^Kap" 
(for rapid) on the map, and then either camp 
there in lonely delight till Jules got his party 
home and returned to me, or else come back at 
some later season of more water. 

A sense of the forest had now permeated Mar- 
shall. It is interesting to watch the forest seize 
a man as ivy-tendrils grasp a wall. The city- 
dweller carries his conversation, like his white 
collars, with him. For the first day or so he 
strides along the trails as if he were still tapping 
the pavements, rehashing the latest abuses in pol- 
itics or rents. But the touch of the great woods 
is insidious; fingers of moss lay hold of him, 
bushes entwine him, and the plumy tips of pine- 
trees brush his moods until, lo, he begins to steal 



60 THE LAURENTIANS 

softly through the ferns, to speak in hushed tones 
of unfading things. So Marshall; as we de- 
scended from blaze to blaze of that green solitude 
which was as the Lord had made it, in the period 
when He was calling all things good, my com- 
panion forgot the kinks and concerns of his pro- 
fession and let the fingers of the forest erase 
trouble from his soul. It was pleasant, too, to 
think that Jules would have supper waiting. 

And such a supper! Please let me register 
that meal. The perfect meal consists of food and 
talk and situation. Conceive, then, a halo of 
smiling faces surrounding a frying-pan of smirk- 
ing trout, the whole framed in the last glow of 
May's tenderest afternoon. Behind us the small 
cabin offered security, behind that the woods; 
and before, the coves and capes of Clair. 

The Amazon was in the seventh heaven, whence 
she descended only at forgivably rare intervals 
to recall a cousin. Only once did we have the 
piano. That was when Marshall, in seraphic 
periods, was extolling the views from Bear. 

**The landscape to the north," he was saying, 
*' extended for miles and miles, one shade of blue 
after another giving way to lavender and rose, 
making a picture no mor — " 

''Dear," said Amazon, ''if we only had our 
baby-grand ! " 



GOING TO THE DEVIL 61 

Marshall bit his lip: '' — making a picture no 
niortal could describe." 

But it was a happy meal, Husband being the 
happiest of all. For he it was, apparently, who 
had suggested the fishing in our absence. He 
had paddled the Amazon around while she pulled 
eight-inch trout from the crystal depths of Clair. 
They had stopped at thirty, not because the fish 
were tired but because the anglers were. Mar- 
shall was so inflamed by the conversation that he 
set forth, as soon as fed, and even though it 
was the hour when only rash or most ingenuous 
fish will rise, he came back with a good string. 
And the next morning, too, the trout, showing 
more willingness than wit, attached themselves 
wantonly to our lines. Having in mind to 
bide me at Tache, I tried my hand at smoking 
a few dry; but the result was vague, to put it 
kindly. 

Now the Amazon was to prove her namesake 
stuff, and I cannot over-eulogize the pluck and 
spirits of that woman; for we had been given a 
night of comfort merely to emphasize the suc- 
ceeding aggravations. The ardors of the trip 
really began when we took trail for Lac Plat at 
the same place where we had commenced our 
mountain climb of the day before. Only the most 
unusual courtesy could have called our route a 



62 THE LAURENTIANS 

trail, for everything that can happen to trails, 
bar being" swallowed up by earthquakes, had hap- 
pened to this one. The wind had selected the 
trees with blazes for those to overthrow. Some- 
times we would have to climb bristling heaps 
of them. Bushes had made free with the 
open spaces, and rocks had apparently sprung 
up along the way, for I cannot imagine the 
original trail-maker having chosen such to 
climb over. Jules led with a huge pack that 
contained the groceries and the kitchen-uten- 
sils ; then Marshall with cameras, bread, and fish ; 
Husband bearing his blanket and the Amazon's; 
she with a light miscellany; and I with my sum- 
mer 's outfit and the rest of the blankets. My yet 
uncalloused neck began to whimper, to protest, 
to shoot arrows of fire into the region I am 
pleased to call my brain. I stopped to readjust 
things, lost ground and observed the Amazon 
bumping along out of sight. The trail was so 
faint that it was necessary to keep together; so I 
rose too hurriedly and sank into a private little 
marsh concealed behind a log. To be wet was 
to be slippery. I called ; they did not hear. The 
Amazon, I supposed, was reminiscing. ' I longed 
for somebody's life; anybody's would do; but 
preferably that fool's who had suggested the trip. 
Who was the first idiot, anyway, who had promul- 
gated the theory that camp-life is one amazing 



GOING TO THE DEVIL 63 

sequence of immortal bliss? I thought of those 
ladies at the chalet who had seen us off, with '*0h, 
how lovely! how heavenly it must be in the real 
wilderness ! ' ' 

Quite warm now, I got up and sloshed on 
through the morass to the next fallen tree. A 
permanent toothache had settled in my neck, and 
an enduring hatred in my heart. The bushes had 
ceased to quiver ahead where the others had lately 
passed. What would they say if I, the only old- 
stager in the crowd, should hold the party up by 
being lost ? Well, let them answer to the coroner ; 
it was their fault. If I were going to be lost, I 
might as well be comfortable : I would rest. And 
I was just going to, when Nature anticipated 
me by looping a cedar-root across my foot. 
Without at all slackening my pace I pitched for- 
ward on my head, the load slipped peaceably off, 
and there we all lay, duffle-bag, Nature, and I, on 
the oozy ground. 

It is but a stumble from the sublimest self-pity 
to plain common sense. I had to laugh ; and as I 
guffawed there in my wallow, all enmity for things 
ebbed from me. The cool ministry of trees re- 
gave me strength, and I decided to catch up with 
them. I had not gone fifty yards before I almost 
))umped into the Amazon. 

''I turned my ankle," she said, ''and thought 
I 'd rest. Were you resting too?"' 



64 THE LAURENTIANS 

''Oh, no!" I said, ''I was only watching two 
bear-cubs up a tree." 

''You wicked man! Why didn't you call us?" 

"I did," I replied truthfully, "but you 
wouldn't hear. Is your ankle bad?'^ 

Luckily it wasn't. 

Jules, being a good guide, had now missed us and 
come back, and passing Lac Ours and Lac Petit 
Ours (about a mile beyond Lac Clair), our party 
trailed painfully on through swamp and thicket. 
It was nearly three before we reached a wind- 
torn birch-bark lean-to on Lac Plat. Fatherly 
Jules had set them to chewing spruce-gum in lieu 
of lunch, and with hot tea the buoyancy came back ; 
but those three miles from Clair to Plat had put 
their stamp upon us. We were now veterans 
all, united in fatigue and bound by bruises. 
Amazon was now sister-mother to us three. Hus- 
band no longer tenderfoot. Common hardship 
is the father of fraternity; and those now-humor- 
ous troubles of that trail had bonded us four dis- 
similars into a happy clan. 

Furthermore, the labors just endured had 
stretched our ambition, and when Jules mur- 
mured something about une cabane on Lac Beau- 
lieu, but two miles further, the tea boiled in our 
blood and we were all for pushing on. 

Lac Plat, which is a pretty ornament, a pend- 
ant trinity of silver ponds thrown carelessly on 



GOING TO THE DEVIL 65 

the Laurentian bosom, is strung together on a 
silent stream. Jules keeps a dugout canoe, a 
hollowed log, braced by two smaller logs for 
buoyancy, on Plat; and as Marshall and I with 
most of the furniture were creeping from the 
second channel in this we saw our first moose, a 
young bull and a cow. Conversely, we were their 
first humans, so neither party moved. The only 
sign of disapproval on the bull's part was some 
irritated hair which rose along his neck. They 
looked at us, then grazed along the shore, and we, 
hoping to secure the spectacle for the others, 
paddled quietly away. The sight of game is the 
most pulse-quickening of all the wood-gods ' gifts. 
The ever-underlying wild in us vibrates to the 
wild so visible in them. Their crashings or their 
softest footfalls startle up some echo in our age- 
less past. ''I have seen a moose," Marshall kept 
saying all that afternoon, and the remark never 
seemed superfluous. His happiness was more in- 
nocent and real than if he had hit upon a silver 
mine. 

Of the two miles to Lac Beaulieu, of a threaten- 
ing cloud which flung twilight in our faces, of our 
horrid surprise in finding that Jules 's cabane was 
an impossible mile farther on; of our endeavors 
to make roosts for ourselves by the shore, and of 
the meal executed and consumed after the shades 
of night had fallen with some intensity on our 



66 THE LAURENTIANS 

wilderness — of these pictures, only the titles. 
Jules is a good guide, but not a great one. Fred 
is great, an artist of his craft, and the difference 
between the two was to be shown to astonished 
me, later, in more desperate situations. For the 
present I was content ; besides, spring nights are 
short. 

The next morning I broke the news of my de- 
sire to follow down the Devil's River, and of my 
plan for waiting in the wilderness till Jules should 
return with a good canoe. A week there, with a 
trout rod for my friend and a note-book for my 
thoughts, seemed very heaven. As usual, there 
was much criticism of heaven. I should die, I 
should hurt myself, I should perish of loneliness 
or starvation or the measles. 

Why is it, I want to ask very seriously, that a 
grown man is not supposed to know his own de- 
sires'? I can conceive that his desires may be 
impracticable or objectionable to others; but why 
is it that not the results of his desires but the de- 
sires themselves are questioned? Once, on the 
Lusitania, I fancied making a meal solely on 
cream-toast. I had to argue with friends and 
waiters for it. Had I expressed a desire for 
lobster a la Popocatapetl, everybody would have 
fallen over themselves to see that I got it. But 
cream-toast! It was plain that I did not know 
what I wanted. The same with afternoon tea. I 



GOING TO THE DEVIL 67 

detest afternoon tea, and yet I like to sit and talk 
with people. But let me sug-gest that I sit and 
talk while they sip tea, and the hubbub begins. 

''Do have some cinnamon toast." 

''Thanlvs, I don't think so, now." 

' ' Then try a chicken-sandwich. ' ' 

''Thank you, I don't care for anything." 

"But, just a little one!" 

In such a case a man's word means nothing, 
nothing; and if he succeeds in out-arguing them 
it is only luck and not because they really believe 
he has spoken frankly. I am beginning to believe 
that the simpler a man's tastes the more different 
he appears from the rest, and hence in their eyes 
the more foolish. 

So was it on that beach of Beaulieu. They 
could not believe that I spoke my heart. But 
Providence was on my side. 



CHAPTER V 

FBOM TACHE TO TREMBLANT 

LAC BEAULIEU, the farthest of that arc of 
lakes begun by Archambault, is, after Ar- 
chambault, the loveliest, the loneliest, and the most 
haunted by wild beasts that we had seen. A beach 
of white sand sloped to the unstirring waters, 
and in the sand were unnumbered footprints of 
moose and deer, of fox and bird. Jules pointed 
out the print of a large dog where dog was im- 
possible and said le loup, but I was skeptical, in 
hopes of further proof. Triumphantly the guide 
tossed up with his toe a large lump of matted 
hair, deer's hair rolled in the stomach of a beast 
of prey, and I then believed le loup. For a 
moment I wondered whether my secret intention 
of residing for a week by Lac Beaulieu were not 
as indiscreet as Amazon would fain make me 
believe. Certainly a man who is counting on his 
three-score years and ten does not care to con- 
template being wolfed down at half that age by 
a pack of brutes. On the other hand that wolf- 
track was a delicate challenge ; and when I crossed 

68 



FROM TACHE TO TREMBLANT 69 

a brook and found a beaver-stick, gnawed of bark, 
it decided me. I would stay. 

This announcement corroborated the opinion of 
me that had been slowly growing in Amazon 's and 
Husband's minds. They rated me half-way be- 
tween unintelligent and imbecile, say imbeciligent. 
Marshall (to^ whom thanks) defended my whim, 
and offered to help make camp for me on the lake, 
while Jules and I explored a route to Tache. 
But Providence, resuming control of my opera- 
tions, prompted me to settle at once on Tache in 
order to explore that region during Jules 's ab- 
sence. By ten of the morning I had made my 
adieus. Any of the ancient martyrs, en route to 
the lions, could not have been in worse plight, in 
the party's mind, and they made their farewells 
correspondingly affecting. I, who had never 
spent a week in real wilderness alone, with 
nothing to do but mosey around and watch the 
menagerie, kept wondering why I had never 
thought of it before. This new-sprung joy dis- 
counted somewhat the very real disinclination one 
has to any parting. Good-byes between wilder- 
ness friends are always made with sincere regrets. 
Cain and Abel, Nero and the Christians, man and 
his mortal enemy, meeting before camp-fires 
would find out the large reserves of good in one 
another and sigh to let each other go. My last 
glimpse of my co-explorers was this: Marshall 



70 THE LAURENTIANS 

doing some steps from Schererezade on the sandy 
floor, an ember in each hand, typical, I hope, of 
sorrow; Husband, rod-in-hand, waiting till his 
spouse was ready to mount boat; and the goodly 
Amazon, probably the first white woman on that 
far beach, expressing her large amity in frantic 
waving. I salute her pluck and generosity. 

Nobody can realize the joy of walking through 
the wilderness unencumbered until he has tumped 
a pack along for days. Jules now wore the duflfle- 
bag. He also bore his pipe and an anxious ex- 
pression. This last was because he had told me 
that he knew the trail to Tache, an old chemin de 
chasseur. It must have been very old, or else mis- 
laid years ago. Certainly the trails I have associ- 
ated with never looked hke that. 

Canoeing, as a clever man once said, is done by 
walking incredible distances through the woods 
and carrying the canoe on the shoulders. Un- 
fortunately the canoe-trip which looks so plaus- 
ible on the map, beginning at the tip of Archam- 
bault and ending down the Devil's River, meets 
this mean carry between Beauheu and Lac Tache. 
The distance is perhaps four miles, the terrain 
hilly, the condition horrent. Yet, with some cut- 
ting, it can be done. I pictured poor Jules 's 
struggle a week hence with his canoe, but I did 
not make my commiseration vocal. That is a 
poor thing to do in the bush. Don't ask your 



FROM TACHE TO TREMBLANT 71 

guides to do more than they are ready to attempt, 
but once under way don 't drench them with pity. 
A self -pitying man anywhere is pitiable indeed; 
but in the bush such sentiment is perilous. Let 
your justice be rigorous, your foresight keen, but 
for sweetness' sake hold the softer sentiments in 
abeyance. I know of one trip ruined by a lady's 
moUycoddhng of the guides. The French-Cana- 
dian, and even more the Indian, has been raised 
in such a different physical environment from 
ours that common factors are difficult to find. 
A guide of sixty will portage for miles a load the 
very sight of which would crush the ordinary 
broker. Yet ask the guide to sign his name, and 
he is disturbed to tears. Give your men good 
food and the right amount, which is not hard to 
gage; appreciate their work without betraying 
that you think it Herculean; keep early hours, 
and take your hardships cheerfully, and you will 
have your men's respect and good- will. There 
lies the trip's success. 

Providence never does things by halves. Either 
the stars seem to be stepping from their courses 
for the very purpose of circumventing you, or 
else the Fates obviously lay aside all other work 
to assist. This time Providence determined to 
outdo itself, and at that very moment was arrang- 
ing the roads of two other English-speaking per- 
sons and mine so that, at the appropriate minute. 



72 THE LAURENTIANS 

they might intersect. In three hours the slight 
and vanishing lines which marked our passages 
through the wilderness would collide. When such 
colHsion happens in Broadway it means snarls 
and two irate individuals backing off. But when 
it happens in the privacy of one's wilderness it 
may mean sudden friendship. In this case this 
was so, and Providence did me a prodigious 
favor, certainly, when it instigated the Wheelers 
to stop for lunch on the virgin shores of Lac 
Tache. 

As if to give my reunion with the English 
tongue the last fillip of fitness, Jules had sunk into 
a sweaty silence. Jules, at best, considered con- 
versation one of the superfluities of life. And 
since my French was collegiate, and therefore 
non-usable, I could scarcely egg him into musing 
aloud. I dimly remembered some of the things it 
was ungrammatical to say, but those that one 
could employ on the Rue de Rivoli without blush- 
ing escaped me. '*Oui, Madame," or "Malheur- 
eusement" was about all that remained to me 
from ''Hernani" and ''Le Cid," and when every 
word that I intended to use in a forthcoming 
sentence had to be dragged up from the well of 
class-room memory with a mental windlass, you 
can see that conversation from my end was not an 
idle amusement. And, worst, when I had care- 
fully collected a remark and uttered it, Jules 




Photograph by Walter Rutherford. 

Indian Trapper's Hut, Lac aux Eats. 



FROM TACHE TO TREMBLANT 73 

would reply with an anemic *'Oui, Monsieur." 
So I soon came to consider persistence as merely 
vainglorious, and we both subsided into deep 
personal silences. 

It was an unaccommodating region — one in 
which just another lake could have been fitted in 
handily. Nature's theory of lakes in Canada 
seems to have been to place some wherever they 
can be set down on the landscape without over- 
lapping. As a consequence they are, in most 
places, enormously plentiful. Canadian farmers 
count their lakes as Americans their chickens. 
He is land-poor, indeed, who owns no water. 
You can lease a dozen lakes in Quebec for the 
price of an extra bath-room in New York. One 's 
annual plumbing bill would give you fifty. But 
on this particular height of land between Beaulieu 
and Tache there were none. There was a pretty 
brook, however, falling in the right direction, and 
we followed it till the bush-leaves glimmered 
white ahead, the silver of sunstruck waters 
spread before us, and we came out on the sands 
of Lac Tache. And there, not twenty yards 
away, was a canoe drawn on the beach, a fire, 
and two men with their backs to us, sitting on a 
log. As we approached, sweet syllables of Eng- 
lish fell upon my ear. They heard and turned. 

*' Please don't stop talking," I said; "it sounds 
good." 



74 THE LAURENTIANS 

They smiled, arose, shook hands; and Provi- 
dence's job was accomplished. 

I soon discovered that the gentlemen to whom 
I had been conducted, as by a magic wand, were 
princes of the country. Had I combed the Prov- 
ince I could not have come across two others more 
appropriately designed for this encounter. They 
were not only authorities on this section of the 
Laurentians, both by residence and affinity; they 
were also cordial from the heart — and head. 
Now this means much to the wayfarer. Mere 
residence, as any traveler knows, subscribes noth- 
ing to a person's usefulness for information. It 
is the dwellers on the Appian Way who do not 
give a hoot about the Caesars. And eke with 
most villagers about their villages. Most men 
have a very misty knowledge about their own 
neighborhood, which becomes less than apathetic 
surmise as to what lies beyond. Not so the 
Wheelers. 

George Wheeler, an American Protestant of 
culture, had settled in this land a generation ago 
and, by that mysterious affection for his place of 
residence which one calls affinity, had made it 
his own. In those days the region was the coun- 
try of Indians and lumber-jacks and priests, all 
Catholic and, save the priests, uncultured. De- 
spite the differences of nationality, of religion, 
and of outlook on life, Mr. Wheeler became a 



FROM TACHE TO TREMBLANT 75 

force in the countryside, probably because true 
cordiality has a way of its own. And I found 
that I had run upon a man looked up to by all 
classes of people. Needless to say I did not find 
this from his own lips or by his own lunch-fire. 

While Jules and I were being plied with trout 
and tea, a magnanimous idea was being spitted 
before the Wheeler heart ; and when it was done 
to a turn, he served it, to this effect : that I com- 
plete the trip down the Devil's Eiver with his 
son Tom, while he return in my place with Jules 
the Silent. I longed to gush acceptance, for such 
a plan would eliminate the toilsome carry from 
Lac Beaulieu, the expense of a fortnight of Jules, 
and would give me expert guidance by the Devil's 
rapids. I made a hasty if beggarly effort to 
convince my conscience that I was exchanging 
Eoland. for Oliver. But my conscience is n 't such 
a fool. 

*'Lac Archambault is very lovely, but," I be- 
gan lamely. 

' ' I have always wanted to go there ; would you 
have me renounce a chance?" said he, gamely. 

"It 's a chance," I said darkly. "I suppose 
you know that the gods have just served you on 
a silver platter to me." 

''Bon repas!" He said, smiling, ''and — au 
revoir. We'll meet at Gray Rocks Inn at our 
mutual convenience. ' ' 



76 THE LAURENTIANS 

* ' Gray Eocks Inn T ' I queried of Tom when the 
two had gone. 

'* Dad's hotel," said he. ''You see, dad started 
bringing a few city-people up into these woods," 
and the son went on to tell me about his father's 
struggles to establish himself in a rough country 
without losing the touch of civihzing gentleness 
necessary to a real success. Tom, who was in 
his twenties, seemed to be a barbarian after 
my own heart, a man who preferred the straight- 
forwardness of country life to the incoherencies 
of cities, who found his joy in a fairly simple 
genuineness, in dealing with the pretty stark 
fundamentals of existence about him rather than 
in pasting the gimcracks of life, as recommended 
by others, upon a surface existence. We got on 
the topic civilization. 

"Yes, I like the orchestra, I enjoy New York, 
and dancing and all that," he said, "but I think 
perhaps a man can be best civilized in a place like 
this. Civilization gets top-heavy down there, 
proud-headed and rotten-hearted. What 's your 
notion of civilization?" 

"The best of everything, including men." 

"I get you; good music, good morals, and good 
sense." 

"Which includes good health. A genius with 
a cold in his head, a fresco painter who can't 
fry eggs, a subway sweeper who thinks the sky 



FROM TACHE TO TREMBLANT 77 

is brick — that's our civilization of to-day. If we 
could only show them this." 

Tom had been paddling me around a point of 
Lac Tache to the outlet where we proposed to 
stop for the night. The lake, fir-skirted and low- 
shored, lay motionless in the down-blaze of bril- 
liant, harmless sun. From the woods stole warm 
perfumes of steaming balsam; a jay made zig- 
zags of noisy blue along the shore. May was 
sitting on the knees of summer. It was Nirvana 
to lie in the bow and be paddled by a fellow, 
whose sun-browned, aristocratic features had been 
molded by a sensitive, clean nature into a face 
fine to look upon. After that long plodding be- 
hind pipe-besotted Jules, such laziness, such com- 
pany, was deep enjoyment. I mentioned the lazi- 
ness. 

'^It is funny that puritans always feel that 
idleness is pagan." 

*^One has that sneaking feeling." 

''But it implies a certain stinginess. Certainly 
the soul that feels assured of an eternity ahead 
won't begrudge one afternoon of folded hands." 

It developed that there were two routes home : 
a direct down-river paddle which included rapids, 
a five-mile portage, then a series of lakes to a 
place called Keepover, whence we could drive to 
Lac Ouimet, (another Ouimet,) on which stood 
Gray Eocks Inn. Or, a longer circuitous route 



78 THE LAURENTIANS 

by lakes and carries into Lac Tremblant, on wMch 
rises Mont Tremblant, the highest of the Lauren- 
tians. 

''I 'm game," said Tom, when I had pointed the 
antennas of my desires at the longer way. ' * This 
is my last real liberty till autumn. Dad '11 beat 
us home; but he won't worry." 

So we pitched camp at a point on the Devil's 
River where a little rapid began to chuckle and 
play with itself. And my contented consciousness 
kept giving thanks for the present company and 
comparing the easy intercourse we had been hav- 
ing with what might have been, had all the beauty 
of things been shut in my heart by the taciturnity 
of Jules. To that able but unimaginative guide 
a primrose was but a primrose (if that) and a 
trout but a piece of fish. To Tom a trout was a 
fount of reminiscence, and a primrose the start- 
ing-point for many thoughts. Lacking primroses 
we had balsam, and as we lay, smoking in unparal- 
leled comfort after supper before a little fire, we 
heated our wondering brain-cells with fevers of 
speculation till late into the night. With morn- 
ing came business. 

A little below our camp- site the young river 
made amends to its impatient nature by sluicing 
through some narrows in a comfortable rapid. 
Luckily my new friend had the river by heart, and 
after telling me what to look out for we started 



FROM TACHE TO TREMBLANT 79 

down. The core of my job was merely to inter- 
pose a paddle between us and destruction when- 
ever necessary: at least that is what it seemed 
like at first. In reality Tom saw to it that there 
was no danger, and I soon came to enjoy the fas- 
cination of pouring by submerged rocks on the 
smooth, slender tongues of water. Later, in 
really bad water, I was to shoot vicious miles of 
agitated white, but as a passenger; and those 
times lacked the beguiling charm of that first 
short rapid of the Devil's. 

It is curious that our esteemed race should 
always choose the most thought-provoking or 
most attractive locality to christen after the devil. 
Later I was to learn from the lips of a poet the 
w^hy of this particular naming. But to my eyes 
that morning the leafy vistas of La Riviere du 
Diable and its quick-running waters seemed para- 
disal to me. 

It would be a recital barren of pleasure to the 
reader, the tale of our next two days. Alas ! no- 
body wants to read of perfect days. Had I 
broken a leg on the carries, or had Tom been 
drowned, I could write confidently. For it is 
not the halcyon moments, but the hellish, that 
give satisfaction, and hell seemed singularly 
remote from those precincts du Diable. Hence, 
since our voyage was not alleviated by a single 
disaster, I shall foreshorten it into a paragraph. 



80 THE LAURENTIANS 

La Eiviere du Diable affords the main water- 
way into the virgin wilderness lying between 
the great body of the western Lanrentians and the 
equally immense area drained by the St. Maurice. 
It is the easiest connecting stream from the rail- 
road at St. Jovite to the headwaters of the Matta- 
win, that rough but only route from this region 
eastward. Doubtless the vanished Huron hunters 
used it as a short cut; and for long to come it 
will be the only highway, winding, arduous, pro- 
voking, and impracticable in places. Until fire 
devastates it this river will be auspiciously beau- 
tiful for those whose errand is life and liberty 
and the pursuit of paradise. The Devil is best 
employed by them who know him well; and as 
you value your life do not attempt the Matta- 
win without guides. This country is no village 
green. 

We ran the river for an hour, if my memory is 
not weakening, and then, by a portage none can 
find, crossed to another stream which was to 
bring us to Grand Cache Lake. (Cache is not 
a misprint for Tache.) But before Cache comes 
Crooked Lake. The portage, downstream, brings 
you in at its northeast end. Kelatives and friends 
traveling the other way can find the portage by 
the fire-sign on a tree. 

Crooked Lake is an experiment on the part 
of the Creator to see how peculiarly a body of 



FROM TACHE TO TREMBLANT 81 

water can be shaped and still have it a lake. 
This one consists of two lobes, irregularly curv- 
ing like cow's horns, each horn about two miles 
long, the distance between tips only two hun- 
dred yards. This could be carried if one were 
in a hurry; we were not. 

At the foot of the lake, at the other horn-tip, 
rather, we came upon an inlet into Graham Lake 
and our first deer at the same time. She was 
lazily browsing about and switching that long 
tail, the length of which is always surprising to 
me. (I must once have had a nurse who lied 
about deer's tails.) There was probably a fawn 
back in the bush. We did n 't bother her, and she 
contented herself with one hop over the first-line 
alders to snort and stare. 

From Graham Lake there was a portage of, I 
hate to say it, four and a half miles. But the 
trail was good and we did it in two hours. I say 
this, not in self-praise but in humility, for Tom 
fairly hogged the canoe. At one's first glimpse 
of him, tall and rather light, one would never have 
gaged the wiriness underlying his flannel shirt, 
or have guessed the steeliness possible to those 
blue eyes. But to see Tom before some palpable 
barrier was to see determination in action. A 
portage like that is the test of a man, both before 
and after taking. Then we had two miles of good 
paddling down the west branch of the little Cache 



82 THE LAURENTIANS 

Eiver with sights of sheldrakes and their young, 
scrabbling along in fright. We thought we saw 
an otter. 

We were now, I believe, getting into private 
territory, and men desiring to take this route 
should inquire at the Eiordon office, either in 
Montreal or St. Jovite, for a permit through. 
My friend was persona grata in this region, so I 
did not have to bother hereabouts. But in canoe- 
ing through Canada one should look up carefully 
the ownership of the territory to be crossed. 
Sometimes a lumber company has leased the limits 
and you will be barred in mid-career; too many 
sportsmen have left fires. Sometimes a fishing 
and hunting club has leased the rights, and the 
guardians are instructed to shoo off and, if they 
aren't shooable, arrest travelers on their terri- 
tory. Most clubs are gracious enough to grant 
permission across their lands if arrangements 
are made beforehand. Information as to owner- 
ship can be had from Quebec if you allow time. 
Address the Department of Fisheries. 

Big Cache Lake, a fine bit of water about two 
miles long, was followed by a portage of a mile 
into Little Cache Lake; going the other way you 
find the portage at the lake 's end toward the left. 
Little Cache was not quite a mile ; and then came 
a two-mile portage around some unshootable 



FROM TACHE TO TREMBLANT 83 

rapids into the Cache River and down that, two 
miles, into Lac Tremblant. 

It was the end of our second day. Tom said, 
'*We 've got a little camp five miles down the 
shore there, or we can camp on that island ; what 
do you say?" 

A strong southwest breeze blew warmly up the 
lake; the sun was falling behind a splendid wall 
of mountain; my portaging and paddling muscles 
were deploring further exercise. ' ' What island I ' ' 
I said to temporize, hoping that he would hear 
them deplore. 

''Down there a mile, with the sandy point 
stretching out. It 's called Commandant's Isle, 
because, until a few years ago old Chief Com- 
mandant, an Algonquin, and the last Indian liv- 
ing on Lac Tremblant had a shanty there." 

''By all means let 's sleep there," I hurried to 
say; "we may get haunted." 

"The whole lake is haunted. The Indians 
called that mountain yonder the Mountain of the 
Dread Manitou. Mr. Lighthall, who has a sum- 
mer home on the western shore there, has written 
a poem about it." 

"What sort of a poem?" 

"The sort you like to read." 

And so it happened that we camped there, on 
which sandy beach was to transpire one of the 



84 THE LAURENTIANS 

fortuitous, happy meetings of my summer — , not 
with Commandant's ghost, for all that Mr. Light- 
hall says: 

Each night returning to your cedared isle 
I see your fire upon the Sandy Point — 
The stick-supported pot, the shadowy lodge, 
The deer-skin soaking by the shore, the gleam 
Of trout, the ghostly smoke, and round the glow, 
The ruddy, black-haired children, turned to you 
Their other sun — and you recounting lore. 

From that same Sandy Point we yielded to the 
clear invitation of the water, stripped and swam; 
and dressing, Tom recited a few more lines of 
''The Land of Manitou": 

The Manitou-Ewitchi rules the wilds. 
He watches ever, and when evil men 
Infringe the great laws of the wilderness 

The Long Range trembles. 

But Mont Tremblant was very calm that eve- 
ning; nor did we infringe the laws of Manitou. 
Lideed if we ever merged with the spirit of 
nature it was then. The cool, caressing water 
closed over our bodies as gently as the heavens 
met over our heads, and with as many tintings 
from the ebbing day. 

Not to be outdone in the matter of quoting, I 
repeated to Tom a quatrain by my friend, Adin 
Ballou : 



FROM TACHE TO TREMBLANT 85 

Poetiy is ever-present Beauty speaking, 
Waking- dream-echoes as such magic can 
"When all the loveliness of earth goes seeking 
A voice within a man. 

Within an hour a man, whom the loveliness of 
earth had not sought in vain, sat down with us at 
twilight's feast. 



CHAPTER VI 



A GREAT MAN UNAWARES 



THE meeting was another one of those dra- 
matic collisions which made my summer so 
fruitful. His entrance was not dramatic, I sup- 
pose, for we had long been watching his canoe 
creep lazily along the edge of dusk; and when, 
in answer to our hail, he beached the boat with 
an easy stroke, you could not say he had collided 
w^ith anything. Yet the tall, broad-shouldered, 
big-nosed, open-countenanced man who lifted one 
moccasin-shod foot out of the canoe, and then 
the other, deliberately, not ungracefully, and 
joined us was, of all men not only in Quebec but 
in Canada, the most appropriate to that spot and 
hour. And so I call it a dramatic collision. 

One would suppose that interesting meetings, 
the thrilling encounters which electrify the nor- 
mal dusk of a man 's musings like a bolt of many- 
rivered lightning, would occur chiefly in cities. 
But for me they have most often happened at the 
four corners of the earth — on steamers, on moun- 

86 



A GREAT MAN UNAWARES 87 

tain-sides, beside the still waters of the wilder- 
ness. Perhaps in towns one is likely to discard 
the easy affability that makes for acquaintance- 
ship, and to don a distant mien. The more of 
a mob, the more distant the mien, until in a 
subway jam one is actually hemispheres away 
from the next man. Certainly men make haste 
to meet where Pan assures them of an honest 
comrade. Tents have no vestibules, and tenters 
keep no butlers. We did not ask our visitor for 
his card. 

"Your cook-fire made such a contented-look- 
ing picture against the dark," he was saying; 
"you don't mind if I sit and watch you two?" 

He was as quiet as the night at first, drank our 
tea without talk, and seemed contented just to 
be in the picture — tiny fire, encroaching dark, and 
three voyageurs gathered in from space almost 
as the wind gathers, for a moment, a few fallen 
leaves into some garden-corner. From his ret- 
icence he might have been a shanty-man, but the 
firelight disclosed a face of sensibility as well as 
strength ; from his hair, a soft and errant shaggi- 
ness, he might have been poet or musician; but 
then his modesty! We should have thought him 
fifty, but for a certain shy magnetism that goes 
with youth. Sprawled there along the sand in 
lan unperturbed silence, smokng, he piqued us 
to the brink of interrogation. 



88 THE LAURENTIANS 

At length the chores were done, a drift-log 
thrown on the fire and ourselves upon the sand, 
whence, after chattering on shoes and seahng- 
wax, the calm beauty of the night drew us off- 
shore from the shoals of conversation to ships 
and the deeps beyond. Tom and I had been con- 
gratulating ourselves (since we despaired of draw- 
ing him into the talk) on our ways of life, his in 
his Laurentians, mine in my Adirondacks, and 
both of us in touch with civilization by mail and 
messenger, yet also steeped in the flow of 
nature. 

'*I was afraid that familiarity would bring 
blindness," said I, ''that the more I was with my 
mountains the less I would look at them. But I 
find that the longer I live with them the more I 
see." 

''Yes, yes," interrupted the stranger, for the 
first time with eagerness, "and the reason is — 
the reason is, I believe, because mountains and 
mole-hills and the other sights of nature are but 
loopholes through which one gets a sight of the 
eternal." 

"As the flower in the crannied wall showed it 
to Tennyson?" said Tom. 

"Yes, and to dispel your friend *s fear let me 
say that I have found to dip into nature is like 
dipping from a well that is inexhaustible. Those 



A GREAT MAN UNAWARES 89 

who draw from her sweet waters most lavishly 
are most sure of being sustained and refreshed." 

' ' That is what Dad says, ' ' Tom remarked. * ' To 
draw from that well is to keep sound." 

''And it is only the timorous and mean and cal- 
culating who ever imagine that the magic springs 
can run dry." 

There was a fine eagerness now about our 
visitor, which had its effect on us. I wondered 
who this extraordinary wanderer could be. 

"Would you say the same about us, about 
men?" asked Tom. 

''Yes, certainly. I would say equally that it 
is only the timorous and mean and calculating 
who can fancy that there are narrow limits to 
human possibilities, who dare say that the race 
cannot improve. But you must live with abandon 
to reaUze it." 

Just then a mosquito bit my ankle. "That is 
right, Tom," I said; "take a hint from your 
native insects, who live with abandon, and see 
how successful and untimorous they are." 

"You 're abandoned," said Tom. 

"I '11 admit it," I said, "for I '11 bet that liv- 
ing under a full head of joy, enthusiasm, love for 
things, or whatever you choose to call it is what 
this gentleman means by abandon. Mosquitoes 
do it, and trees, and solar systems, and so do the 



90 THE LAURENTIANS 

men with whom it is a pleasure to be. A sort of 
regulated abandon is my notion of the rational 
life." 

''Just so," acceded the stranger. ''Abandon 
means fervor, ecstasy, enchantment of the mind, 
fascination of the will, enravishment of the senses, 
vital generosity, recklessness of spirit, fearless- 
ness of intell — " 

"Wait, please, a moment," gasped Tom; "my 
breath's gone. If you lived like that you 'd burn 
up; you'd last about as long as a shooting-star, 
though I admit as prettily." 

"There are middle realms, my friend. I am 
not arguing for license. I am speaking of a sort 
of ferment which should be in the blood. With- 
out it work is drudgery, the day a burden, and all 
life becomes infected with a sullen discontent, 
which makes happiness forever impossible. I 'm 
not advocating a perpetual rapture, which is im- 
possible too." 

"How do you get that way?" asked my honest 
partner, smiling. 

"Are you not that way?" asked the stranger 
gently in return. "If you were not I could not 
have spoken. I don't carry my pulpit with me 
as a rule." 

Indeed he was no pulpiteer, rather the leonine 
scholar-lover of the scene. His shaggy head and 
flannel shirt added a certain invincibility to the 



A GREAT MAN UNAWARES 91 

oracle, as if the voice of Delphi in him had caught 
its inspiration from the fields. 

''Don't misunderstand me,'* he continued; 
''abandon is merely the free and unrestrained 
yielding of one's self at any given moment to the 
best promptings of the instinct, the reason, and 
the spirit. As I was coming along you happened 
to yield to it long enough to quote poetry, which, 
for a young fellow, is to act with the maximum 
abandon. Quoting poetry between males is al- 
most never done. ' ' 

"Me?" said Tom. "Poetry?" 

"Well, verse," and the stranger chuckled. 
"Mind, I don't hold it against you. In fact it 
attracted me in." 

"I could remember only four lines," said Tom: 

"Beyond the sweeping meadows 
The looming mountains rise, 
Like battlements of dreamland 
Against the brooding skies. 

"I wish I knew how it goes on." 
"I think I know how it goes on," said our 
guest : 

"In every wooded valley 

The buds are breaking through, 
As though the heart of all things 
No languor ever knew." 

"There is an ecstasy in the heart of all things," 



92 THE LAURENTIANS 

I said. **Do you know who wrote the poem?" 

''One of your Canadian poets, a fellow I knew 
in my youth," replied the stranger in a low 
voice. ''He 's done better than that, but I can't 
say many of his things — or his name." 

"I 'm not a Canadian and have n't the faint- 
est idea who is Canada's greatest poet. Tell 
me," I begged. 

The stranger shifted in the sand with a grunt. 
Tom re-lit his pipe and kicked the fire together. 
The sudden light glanced along the big frame 
of the lounging guest, revealed his large patient 
features, and darted into humorous shining eyes. 
He made a funny little gesture, saying: 

"I can't lecture. Don't bring that disaster 
on yourselves. But I have a cousin down in 
New Brunswick you may have heard of, Charles 
G. D. Eoberts. Now there 's a poet for you, a 
man who is at his best on a big theme in nature, 
and worth quoting at times like this, if one has 
the memory. I have n 't ; but I know the conclu- 
sion of his sonnet 'The Flight of the Geese.' " 
And he recited, drawlingly but with true feeling : 

' ' High through the drenched and hollow night their 
wings 
Beat northward hard on winter's trail. The sound 
Of their confused and solemn voices borne 
Athwart the dark to their long Arctic morn 



A GREAT MAN UNAWARES 93 

Comes with a sanction and an awe profound, 
A boding: of unknown, foreshadowed things." 

'^Roberts knew," said Tom quietly. 

''Which is why he is memorable," murmured 
the leonine scholar. "He didn't write about 
nightingales but about the frogs and alder-bushes 
underneath his New Brunswick nose. And it was 
the same mth all that crowd of his day. Lamp- 
man, Duncan Campbell Scott, W. W. Campbell, 
Frederick George Scott. Canadians in those days 
lived close to nature perforce. There was little 
music and no theater, at least down home, and 
one had an eye on the subject. To see, to feel, to 
say it with elation, that is the poet's task. Read 
Roberts' 'Solitary Woodsman' and you get a true 
picture transmitted into poetry by the very fact 
that truth is beauty." 

"You left one name from the list," said Tom. 
"Isn't Bliss Carman a Canadian?" 

"Yes, but one of the wanderers, the wapiti, and 
little known." 

"I did 'nt realize he was a Canadian," I said, 
"though everybody knows his name." 

"His name, perhaps," said the other dryly, 
"but his work, hardly. That is what counts. I 
can scarcely recall a dozen poems by him, and I 
am interested in poetry." 

"There 's one that the soldiers liked," said 



94. THE LAURENTIANS 

Tom, *'a great poem for going into battle. I 
learned it training. ' ^ 

''Which?" very low indeed. 

**I'll say it: 

''Lord of my heart's elation, 
Spirit of things unseen, 
Be thou my aspiration, 
Consuming and serene. 

"Bear up, bear out, bear onward. 
This mortal self alone. 
To selfhood or oblivion. 
Incredibly thine own. 

*'As the foam-heads are loosened 
And blown along the sea, 
Or sink and merge forever 
In that which bids them be, 

*'I, too, must climb in wonder 
Uplift at thy command. 
Be one with my frail fellows 
Beneath the wind's strong hand, 

"A fleet and shadowy column 
Of dust and mountain rain, 
To walk the earth a moment 
And be dissolved again. 

** Be Thou my exaltation 
Or fortitude of mien. 
Lord of the world's elation, 

Thou breath of things unseen!" 

The eloquence of silence followed. The spirit 



A GREAT MAN UNAWARES 95 

of things unseen was all about, on the clouded 
lake and in the dim summer sky, but most of all 
was imminent about us three. I recalled the 
Bible verse: ''Where two or three are gathered 
together in my name, there am I." It did not 
occur to me to remember that, an hour before, this 
provocative guest of ours had not existed for us ; 
that only two days ago the sHm imaginative youth 
who had just shown us a corner of his soul had 
joined hands in friendship with me. We had all 
glimpsed that hint of eternity in the moment, the 
hint which nature is forever trying to give, the 
hint which profound poetry like that does give. 

But Tom sighed. "If life is so frail, so tempo- 
rary a thing, I wonder what 's the reason in liv- 
ing it?" 

I looked at him with added interest, and an 
answer came to me. "There are some lives that 
show what manliness can mean. And that is 
enough reason for living, is it not, at least until 
the whole race sees and catches up to them?" 

"Yes, yes," assented the stranger, "reason 
enough. The race is puny yet. It needs much 
schooling, a continuous example. Even with such 
as Confucius, Christ, and St. Francis we progress 
with a lamentable slowness, perhaps because our 
teachers dwell too much on the virtues of inno- 
cence and abstinence instead of on life's joy. 
The virtue of a man is the strength of his es- 



96 THE LAURENTIANS 

sential spirit, and the only test for the virtue of 
his heart is joy. Those who dwell in the domin- 
ion of joy ask no reason for living there; they 
live." 

''Joy is more than enjoyment, thenT* queried 
Tom. 

*'Yes, yes," eagerly. *'You two fellows have 
enjoyed to-day, for yon have drunk in the love- 
liness of the world. But to enhance that loveli- 
ness is more joyful still ; to create it, the most joy 
of all. To create soane little bit of beauty, to 
serve goodness by some act of kindness, to en- 
large the world of sympathy and love, to help 
questing spirits find encouragement to hope — 
these make for joy, lasting and invincible. Pleas- 
ure depends on material things, but joy on the 
things of the spirit. It is not a relative thing as 
pleasure is, but a positive condition of the spirit 
regardless of surroundings. Joy must be for- 
ever a part of man's ideal. And it behooves all 
those who would perpetuate the sacred fire of life 
to nurture through all hazards its glowing core of 
happiness. ' ' 

' ' There should be no gloomy poets, then, ' ' said 
I. 

''Nor professors," said our guest. 

"Nor people," said Tom. 

"But," and the leonine one showed his mental 
teeth," do not confuse such joy with soft ease 



A GREAT MAN UNAWARES 97 

and the superficial contentments of ignorance. 
It were as superficial as Pollyanna to believe that 
there are no dark secrets. Such joy is often 
linked "s^ith tears, yet is sturdily happy in the 
face of death. Happiness, I think, is not so 
much a reward as a proof of worth. There are 
grim truths, of course, but there are not any 
gloomy truths; or at least if there are, they are 
but half-truths, truths in the process of being 
clarified. Every prophet has felt as your Car- 
man says in a quatrain I remember: 

"O Earth, with all thy transport, 
How comes it life should seem 
A shadow in the moonlight, 
A murmur in a dream ? " 

"There is one sure recourse," I suggested. 

''You mean nature?" asked Tom. 

''He means nature," said our stranger with a 
calm finahty ; ' ' and you, with me, have found that 
recourse sure, haven't you? Or have you lived 
in this glory of forest and lake so long that you 
have never known what it is to grow anxious and 
harried with distractions in the house, to step out 
into the sunlight and find that your anxieties were 
artificial? In New York I have been crowded 
and hustled and irritated to the point of physical 
desperation. But a return to nature is a return 
to good nature. And more than that ; an evening 
like this washes away all sorrow if you will but 



98 THE LAURENTIANS 

let it. I do recall, now, another poem of Car- 
man 's. It 's about the return to our birthright, 
nature. You fellows, or the fire, are to blame for 
all this; but you 're in for it now," and in his 
calm, fire-gazing way he repeated: 

"When I have lifted up my heart to thee 
Thou hast ever hearkened and drawn near, 
And bowed thy shining face down close over me 
Till I could hear thee as the hill-flowers hear. rx 

''When I have cried to thee in lonely need, 
Being but a child of thine bereft and wrung, 
Then all the rivers in the hills gave heed 
And the great hill- winds in thy holy tongue — 

"That ancient incommunicable speech 
The April stars and autumn sunsets know — 
Soothed me and calmed me with solace beyond reach 
Of human ken, mysterious and slow." 

At that moment of quiet under the heart of 
night, I thought I had never heard lines more 
tender or stately or significant than these, given 
with the slow, grave utterance of our unknown 
friend. What they said assured sanctuary to 
men pursued by life if they were true; and we, 
on that little fire-lit isle of friendship surrounded 
by the wilderness, knew that they were true. 

*'I 'd give a hand to meet that man Carman," 
exclaimed Tom. 



A GREAT MAN UNAWARES 99 

*'He 's not much to meet," said our friend, 
*'a shy and awkward old bachelor who confines 
his conversation mostly to the business of the 
day. I know him, or did when we were younger, 
and still occasionally get glimpses of liim. He 's 
a whimsical, pondering sort of giant, New Bruns- 
wick born, but forced to hunt his bread in the 
States. He was starting off from Montreal ihe 
other day on a lecture tour, and vowing when he 
got it over that he 'd never go again where he 
couldn't go in moccasins." 

''I heard that he made a living writing adver- 
tisements," said Tom, '^ advertising road-stuffs 
or some such thing." 

''Advertising beauty doesn't always support a 
man. ' ' 

''Even the cannibals of the South Seas knew 
enough to support their prophets," I said, "I 
should think that Canada — " 

"Who is to decide as to who are the authorita- 
tive prophets?" asked our guest. "It isn't bad 
for a poet to go through the fire unless — ^unless 
it kills him inopportunely, like poor Keats. It 
tries his creed and knits his logic closer." 

"Was Carman soured by it?" 

"O God, no!" shot back the stranger. "No man 
of his age is worth the name if he allows him- 
self to sour, or even lack certitude, in the face of 



100 THE LAURENTIANS 

the immortal vision. One stanza I remember 
sums it up: 

* ' foolish ones, put by your care ! 
Where wants are many joys are few; 
For at the wilding springs of peace 
God keeps an open house for you." 

''What an exquisite name for the wilderness," 
thought I, "God's open house." 

"Will you write that down for me?" asked 
Tom. "Dad's idea in building up our place on 
this lake was something like that. I never heard 
it put better." And he handed the man a piece 
of torn sugar-bag and a pencil-end. 

For hours, I suppose, we talked. Once our 
guest said that he was trying to remember some- 
thing and wrote for fifteen minutes on envelopes 
and things from every pocket while Tom and I 
built up the fire. Probably dawn would have 
found us still talking, for we had got on the en- 
chanted topic, woman. Tom had said, "I can't 
imagine being thirty and unmarried." 

"Don't try to," said our friend sharply "I — ," 
when what he was about to say was interrupted 
by the bow of a canoe penetrating the disc of 
light and a young fellow's voice saying, "Jove, 
Uncle, is that you?" 

It evidently was from the jump that he gave. 



A GREAT MAN UNAWARES 101 

"Good Lord! Wliat have I been doing! It 's 
midnight ! ' ' and like a schoolboy discovered truant 
he brushed the sand from him, saying, ''I '11 be 
right there, Lighthall," and to us, "I '11 blame 
you two for this — this interesting evening," and 
with a firm, benediction-like grasp of the hand 
he had chmbed into the boat and they pushed off. 

'*I 've been looking everywhere," I heard the 
fellow say, "and mother was sure that you were 
either drowned or lost." 

"So I was," came the strong slow voice, "lost 
by the still waters." And they vanished. 

We poked at the fire in silence, each thinking 
of this strange visitation, the rugged, kindly man 
lounging on the sands, his serene, exalted talk, 
his funny exit. 

"Lost by the still waters," repeated Tom. "If 
that man is n't a poet he ought to be. He has all 
the feelings." 

"And the words." 

"And the philosophy." 

"And the hair." 

"Do you suppose he has the taste for spiritual 
toil that goes with being a poet?" asked Tom. 
"He looked so lazy." 

"And yet, look!" and I smoothed out the drop- 
ped sugar-bag which was all scribbled over with 
variants of some verse. 



102 THE LAURENTIANS 

''Yes, look," said Tom, "there 's more of it." 
We bent over some letter-paper also scribbled 
over. 

"And look!'' I cried excitedly, pointing to the 
letter-head : 

Bliss Cabman 

New Canaan 

Conn. 

"By Jove, man," exclaimed Tom, "we 've been 
entertaining the greatest man in Canada!" 

"Unawares," said I, looking regretfully at the 
hollow in the sand. 



CHAPTER VII 

MONT TEEMBLANT 

DAWN had got tired of poking her fingers 
into our eyes and had set to work roasting 
us out of bed before we finally woke sufficiently 
to roll from the balsam to the bath. The world 
was a-splash with sunshine, and our lake lapped 
us in white flame as we thrashed about informally 
in it. Some day some glorious barbarian, hke 
Glazounow, will write ''The Morning of a Faun" 
conceived in racing melody and orchestrated in 
transparent fire, which will bring back to me the 
feelings of that plunge. To spatter diamonds 
and drip fire, to lie in silk so bottomless and 
breathe air so soft, to riffle the mirrored moun- 
tains and watch them form again, and to note the 
muscle-play of my companion — these were good. 
Poor old civilization in tight clothes ! If it only 
could forget its simper, Greece might yet be re- 
created before our eyes. Certainly there is a 
lilt of freedom about congenial nakedness that 
bathers in bathing-suits cannot know. 
Bacchus now winked out of the coffee-pot an/i 

103 



104 THE LAURENTIANS 

beckoned us to breakfast. Then we remembered 
our poet and read for the first time the lines 
written on crumpled paper, unentitled, but cer- 
tainly a beautiful summing up of his admonition 
of joy to us of the night before : 

The starry midnight whispers 
As I muse before the fire 
On the ashes of ambition 
And the embers of desire. 

Life has no other logic 
And Time no other creed 
Than: ''I for joy will foUow, 
Where thou for love dost lead." 

*'What a pledge to one's inspiration!" said 
Tom. '* 'I for joy will follow, where thou for 
love dost lead.' " 

''It surely is the whole duty of an artist, the 
whole satisfaction of a Christian, the sum of 
wisdom." 

"The loveliness of earth, when she went seek- 
ing a voice within a man, as your Ballou says, 
didn't go far wrong when she found Bliss 
Carman," said Tom, echoing my thought. 

It was the first of June, the opening of the fly 
season, and the last day of Tom's respite from 
duty as assistant host at Gray Rocks Inn. The 
drought, which was to scourge Canada all sum- 



MONT TREMBLANT 105 

mer, was well under way, and a haze had settled 
in the songless air, but we determined to climb 
Mont Tremblant. 

In Tremblant the Laurentians of this part of 
Canada do the best they can, which as mountains 
go, isn't much, the summit being only 1713 feet 
above the lake, 2474 feet above the sea. In two 
other remote localities the Laurentians rise 
higher, the Gaspe altitudes reaching 4000 feet, and 
certain promontories of Ungava 6000. A man 
thinking of the Laurentians as mountains comes 
to contemn them. But if he rightfully considers 
the Laurentians as his wild garden, the ever- 
varying hills which anake a setting for a thousand 
lakes, then his imagination gives reasons to its 
impatient relative, the mind, and the Laurentians 
stand redeemed before him. 

The trail up Tremblant begins at the southeast 
corner of the lake from the fish hatchery and can 
be followed by any one Avith the most moderate 
intelhgence to the top without faltering. Part 
way up it crosses an open space sown with huge 
rocks, and it jumps a brook or two ; it never agi- 
tates the courage with cliffs to be scaled or preci- 
pices passed. And a wooden scaffold enables you 
to get the view. 

Tom and I, uninfected with the usual frenzy of 
haste, made the ascent in about an hour and a 
quarter, having taken time to follow up and ad- 



106 THE LAURENTIANS 

mire some of the young partridges whicli were to 
make us many meals that autumn. Owing to a 
scarcity of sleet-storms and a very dry spring, 
the partridges of 1921 were spread through the 
Canadian wilderness in very comfortable num- 
bers. That is, on an ordinary five-mile walk one 
would see five coveys, and the mother bird had 
her claws full, I reckon, to bring up the families 
that were hatched unto her. 

It is a handsome bird, the ruffled grouse, and 
one that will afford any amount of fun, as I was 
to find later, when my Montagnais friend and I 
tried after them with nooses, and when Alice 
and Sally-gay, my indefatigable pals of the St. 
Maurice, assisted me in a revolver attack upon 
them. But those day were to come ; sufficient now 
was the view spread out to us around the Trem- 
bling Mountain. 

It was a lucky thing to be up there with 
Tom. He had participated in most of the scenery. 
Lac Tremblant, into whose wooded shores the 
water cut with silver scythes, lay seven miles 
long beneath us. To Tom each island, each cove, 
each cape was posted with memories. He told 
me of a ski trip in a blizzard, of moon-lit nights 
noisy with owls. He showed me horizons toward 
the Height of Land whither he and his father went 
on exploration, and drew routes with his fore- 
fingers beyond the Devil's Eiver that would lure 



MONT TREMBLANT 107 

the most besotted man from laziness. He pointed 
out Moose Hollow, where the great animals made 
their yards and wintered, a hollow so rounded and 
so deep as to appear a bowl which Manitou him- 
self could not drain in several gulps. *'And 
thank God," said Tom, ''there ^s no way to get 
the excellent timber out." 

As I sit back now and close out the too-much- 
with-us world, I recall vividly three things from 
that scaffold-hour: the lake spread like a close 
Milky Way across the unbroken forest; the long 
flanks of Tremblant falling in groundless clouds 
of green into the hazy distance; and the woods- 
lover beside me, his shirt open at the throat, his 
steel-blue eyes roaming the plowlands near his 
home, the distant lakes, and the all-circling forest. 
I often wonder if there is more of the miser in 
me than in other men ; for sometimes a sharp pain 
cuts my heart when I realize the prodigality of 
life that sentences hands, once grasped, never 
more to grasp, acquaintanceships made to be for- 
gotten like a passing wind. These make living 
straws, I suppose, with which the soul warms its 
nest, these touched hands and accepted hearts. 
But what when the soul takes wing? 

From the mountain-top to a brook shielded from 
the sun by giant spruce was a fifteen minutes' 
run, and there we thought to have lunch. But we 
reckoned without our hosts — of flies. The cool 



108 THE LAURENTIANS 

wind of the last few days had tempered the appe- 
tites of these early-summer pests; now had come 
the heat and they ate to make up for lost nourish- 
ment. I calculated that I could not swallow lunch 
fast enough to equalize the emptying process 
which all the little winged conduits around me 
were carrying on. The flies had come; and now, 
therefore, I must come to the subject of flies, a 
subject interesting, inevitable, but exceedingly — 
ticklish. For it is so hard to hit the happy mean. 
It is so very hard to warn the new-comer suffi- 
ciently and not scare him out of Canada. To 
brush the subject over is to do injustice to the 
flies; and to over-emphasize their presence is to 
bring down the wrath of Canada upon my head. 

My only refuge is the truth, and you shall have 
it, naked. 

The truth about the flies in the Canadian woods 
is this : During June and July, with possibly parts 
of May and August, according to the warmth and 
wetness of the season, there are flies in the bush. 
The man who blinks this fact and goes unpre- 
pared is destined for inevitable woe. But he who 
arms himself wisely can endure them with ease, 
if not with enthusiasm. 

I was almost scared out of my summer by a 
chance meeting with some friends in Montreal 
,who had learned of my woods itinerary. ''Go- 
ing now!" said they, ''Why, man, you '11 be 



MONT TREMBLANT 109 

poisoned." ''The noise '11 drive you crazy." 
''Take it from us, you don't know what you 're 
getting into." "Sometimes even the shanty-men 
have to come out, in a bad season." These were 
only some of the remarks. But my duffle was 
ready and I had said the word and hated to about 
face just for a pack of mosquitoes. So I started, 
though not too confident that, poisoned and a 
lunatic, I would not be carried out to the nearest 
Canadian asylum. Yet I was n't, and not because 
I have any superior talent for enduring mosqui- 
tos. I haven't. I would rather live with a 
murderer any day than with a mosquito. Yet I 
would not hesitate to risk them again, with the 
same outfit. As for the flies, with foresight they 
are made innocuous. 

It is the habit, assumed as a privilege I sup- 
pose, of every woods-going person who puts finger 
to paper, to proclaim his outfit from the tree-tops. 
Sometimes it is amusing, when some enthusiastic 
ego shoots darts of irony at the dens of barbarism 
in which all other campers dwelL His collection 
of pails and victuals is so fervently correct, his 
hearers' so preposterously wrong. But even 
then it pays to listen, for where there is enthusi- 
asm there usually is some sense. I find it pays 
to listen to them all; then cull what seems 
reasonable and try it out. 

The three great weapons which I culled were 



110 THE LAURENTIANS 

these : a bottle of citronella and castor-oil, mixed 
fifty-fifty, for walking or fishing; a smudge for 
cooking or camp-making ; and a cheese-cloth tent. 
The smudge of course was an old Adirondack 
friend ; so was the citronella, which hitherto I had 
mixed with sweet-oil, a more lovely but less last- 
ing combination. The various other liniments 
offered by progressive druggists are, at the best, 
good for nothing. 

The tent was a novelty to me, as advised in 
Stewart Edward White's ''The Forest," which is 
the most poetic and yet horse-sensical book that 
the red gods of the North Country have yet in- 
spired. He must be thin-blooded indeed who can 
read one page of it and not hear the forest calling 
to him. At the same time it is a perfect text- 
book for the life. My indebtedness to the flannel- 
shirted artist who wrote it goes far beyond 
cheese-cloth tents. Just at present, however, we 
must stay inside the tent. I made it the same size 
as my forester, without opening, the seams rein- 
forced with braid, and with loops at every corner. 
The length enabled it to trail enough upon the 
ground, and thus one was hermitically sealed, 
isolated, cleft from the tiniest, busiest bug in an 
oasis of comfort. My particular summer was so 
dry that the cheese-cloth tent was the only shelter 
needed and it was paradise obtained at the low- 
est price recorded. 



MONT TREMBLANT 111 

A man's day in the woods falls into three 
parts: travel, meals, and sleep. The important 
third is sleep. After a sound night one can face 
anything in the way of portages and other im- 
pediments to bliss. And the way to sleep well in 
the woods is to wrap warm, lie soft and insectless- 
ly. Camping is fun because it is such a personal 
matter, because it is an art. To an artist I sup- 
pose advice is unwarranted; but on my brother 
neophytes I humbly urge cheese-cloth tents for 
Canadian June. 

It was an ingenious devil that worked out the 
flies ' daily calendar for them — ingenious and eco- 
nomical. There is n't an hour of the twenty-four 
which has n't been allotted to one of the five spe- 
cies rampant. During the midday heat the sand- 
fly and deer-fly are the pests in evidence. The 
others are resting. If patience be a virtue then 
the deer-fly is more virtuous than many Chris- 
tians I have known. He will come at you time 
and again with the sort of swoop that makes 
you shudder. He looks big enough to bruise you; 
and the powerful insect can saw out a piece of 
flesh if you let him. But he does n't come in 
swarms, nor after dark. I can't love the deer-fly, 
but I can accept him as a sporting proposition. 
Not so the mean but variable little sand-fly. He 's 
a nuisance, but not prevalent everywhere. 

About mid-afternoon the black fly arrives. His 



112 THE LAURENTIANS 

trick is to alight on your neck, run up to your cap 
or behind your ear, and suck till full. When he 
goes he leaves the spigot running. A man looks 
like a striped tiger, after an afternoon of them, 
from the streams of dried blood across his 
countenance. But the black-fly does n't bicker or 
hum and might have his bit of blood and no ques- 
tions asked if he didn't come in such numbers. 
On the bad days, however, a man is submerged 
in a ferment of flying, alighting, crawling, biting, 
bleeding bugs ; and it is too much. The citronella- 
castor fails; head-nets stifle you; hfe darkens 
and — but with dusk they are gone. 

By then, the no-see-em, called by the Canuck 
''brule, " is a-wing. This bird, which is invisible, 
is the demon's last word in efficiency. It can 
penetrate the meshes of one's socks, bite until 
one's flesh rises in angry mounds, pepper one's 
scalp with fire, and strike terror into the hardiest 
soul. If all this can be done by a creature, crowds 
of whom could revel on the point of a needle, 
what might not a herd of, say, bat-sized brules 
accomplish. No, Nature has treated us indul- 
gently; and it is not fair to criticize such foibles 
as her no-see-ems. Besides, by dark they too 
have given place to the mosquito. 

Since the days when Cleopatra employed a 
special slave to brush mosquitos from her 
shapely ankles, vocabularies have been ransacked 



MONT TREMBLANT 113 

for words stinging and venomous enough to call 
the thing. No one has found the word. There 
is a curious relief in definitely terming something 
you dislike sometliing else ; call a man a pig, and 
your exasperation is mollified. But call a 
mosquito by whatever epithet you choose and 
your sense of injury remains unassuaged. Peo- 
ple with unpracticable tempers should not visit 
the woods in mosquito-time, for there are few 
places whose beauty or restfulness is not tem- 
pered by this creature's presence. By day it is 
merely a more or less persistent pest ; but at night 
it becomes a portent whose buzz is so infinitely 
worse than its bite that one lies in a simmer of 
continuous apprehension and prays to be bitten 
and have it over with. At intervals, timed just 
to prevent one from falling into total unconscious- 
ness, the appointed insect soars from the black- 
ness, swoops in a crescendo of rueful music, eddies 
about your head, and then is off again. "Next 
time will do, ' ' says he. If the night be warm the 
procession is fairly continuous, and the dark 
magnifies the noise into a nocturnal uproar. 

But at dawn, that is by 3 a. m., the real agony 
begins. By then the mosquitos have inflamed 
themselves into a frenzy of activity, the no-see- 
ems re-awake, the black-flies return, and the period 
designed for repose is devoted to an eccentric 
contest between a sleep-sodden man and a cloud 



114 THE LAURENTIANS 

of enthusiastic insects. The alternatives are 
either smothering in a blanket or slapping out of 
it. At such a time a man can do horrible violence 
to the noble qualities he has been storing up since 
childhood. 

The above is an unexaggerated picture, but a 
picture of one who has renounced all preparations. 
Had he built a smudge on either side of him to 
light at dawn, had he spent three dollars and as 
many hours making a cheese-cloth tent, the scene 
would have been this : you are engaged in restful 
slumber on a bed of balsam. Above you, a cloud 
of cheese-cloth, and not of mosquitos, is waving in 
the light air. Outside, to be sure, they are still 
conscientiously trying the surface of the structure, 
snapping at it now and then in famished despera- 
tion, but in vain. The breeze as it comes through 
is automatically filtered of all flies. And if you 
chance to open your eyes, it is only to drop off 
again to slumber in that deepest of all satisfac- 
tions, peace in the very jaws of danger. 

I have said my say on flies. They exist; but 
their clamorous energies are chiefly wanton 
sound. They are the wilderness-lover's friends 
in the last reality, for they, more than heat or 
cold, rapids or mountains, danger, famine, or 
great distances, are winged guardians of the 
heavy-fruited treasure of the North. Allah 
save them! 



CHAPTER VIII 

INFORMATIOlSr ONLY 

THE days which followed at Gray Rocks Inn 
did for me what the Arab's tent did for 
that chilly camel — made me at home and con- 
tented, at no matter what inconvenience to the 
proprietor. I met the Daniel Boone of that neigh- 
borhood, 

"Moise Fleurant, voyageur, 
Good companion, raconteur, 
Children's hero, dean of guides, 
Famous through the Laurentides ! 
Moise of the hundred bears. 
Curious baits and cunning snares. 
Plum-tree planter in wild spaces. ..." 

The rest of Mr. Lighthall's appreciation of this 
simple, fascinating man can be found in his ' ' The 
Land of Manitou. " Next door, in a little clearing 
scooped out of the bush, sat John Boyd, the biog- 
rapher, receiving congratulations on his "Car- 
tier" and contemplating "Laurier," the greatest 
French-Canadian of them all, the one man who 
has been able to make these two races, sitting so 

115 



116 THE LAURENTIANS 

incompatibly in each other's laps, smile at one 
another. It is a heart-warming thing to me, the 
sight of big hterature springing from the soil, 
that ancestral source of truth. I am sure that 
Mr. Boyd's chapters will be none the less 
scholar^" on account of the southwest wind, that 
jumps from Lac Ouimet upon his little porch, dis- 
turbing his garnered memoranda* 

Pleasant as were the Gray Eocks days, I soon 
learned to look forward to the evenings when Tom 
and his father, and usually some hunter or pros- 
pector, would foregather in the den and I could hear 
the quintessential gossip of the North. Mean- 
while I plied the precinct with questions concern- 
ing my future travels, and learned of more places 
that ought to be visited than I could get around 
to in a dozen years. 

I am now going to give away a happy secret: 
in the same vein as those revivalists who advise 
living each day as if it were one 's last, I urge you 
to visit a country as if you were about to write 
a book on it. Even superficially it pays. Nothing 
stimulates the natives, from hotel-men to hack- 
drivers, to so much gratuitous interest in one. 
And, internally, the harvest is correspondingly 
richer. Landscapes, that would have bored you, 
now possess a comparative interest; historic 
sights, which would have been gulped down un- 
feelingly, now are masticated with an eye to 



INFORMATION ONLY 117 

future consumption. Your eyes bulge in search 
of the palpable truths ; your ears are distended to 
catch the distinctive note; queer corners are the 
quarry; and hardsliips are part of the game. 
You leave the land, not as a stranger who has 
rubbed its surface, but as one who has shared, for 
a while, its inmost consciousness. And the writ- 
ing of notes is a help. They need not all be for 
books, but could be used to make one's letters 
seem astute, or even to replenish the pages of a 
journal. Most people have not thought a 
thought until they have put it into words; and 
having gone that far — I abominate advice; all 
that I started to say was that having a motive 
need not make a pedant of a man, while on the 
contrary it does supply him with motive-power. 
Without my avowed reason for pressing on I 
am sure that I should never have surmounted the 
unaccommodating facts which now reared their 
heads in my way, should never have experienced 
the tempers and triumphs which were to turn the 
barren bush into a memorable pleasure-land. 

My immediate job was to find out where to send 
myself. A letter from Fred showed that his 
future was shrouded in a legal haze and that our 
meeting was problematical for a month at least. 
I looked at the map, until I was dizzy with nomen- 
clature, trying to decipher a route that would en- 
able me to join the St. Maurice Eiver from my 



118 THE LAURENTIANS 

present situation on the Mont Lanrier line. And 
at my most desperate moment Mr. Wheeler intro- 
duced me to Walter Abyberg of the Riordon Co. 
at St. Jovite. This was luck of the purest quality. 
Mr. Abyberg, a strong and handsome Swiss, be- 
side whom, I fancy William Tell would have looked 
somewhat puny, had ranged for years the great 
area of forest and water which involved every 
possible avenue to the St. Maurice watershed. 
For a solid two hours this obliging giant spread 
map after map before my intoxicated eyes and 
recited the advantages and portages of route after 
route. 

The first, from St. Jovite itself by way of the 
Devil's River and down the Mattawin, was im- 
practicable because of the difficulties on the Matta- 
win, a rough, impetuous stream. 

The second involved taking train to Mont 
Laurier and then a fairly hard trip of two to 
three weeks across to the Transcontinental. This 
is as follows: Drive from Mont Laurier to Te- 
panee River, in half a day; then up the river to 
the Forks, two and one-half days, portage to 
Fork Lake, on left ; two little lakes ; Big Dog Lake ; 
Little Dog Lake; big portage to Windigo; por- 
tage three and one-half miles to Mejomangoos 
Lake, which is thirty miles long; there is an In- 
dian Church, left, above island; portage to Duck 
Lake; then numerous little lakes, to northeast 



INFORMATION ONLY 119 

branch of Gatincau River, and on to Gatico station 
of the Transcontinental. The water was already 
so low, and this trip looked so difficult, expensive, 
and lonesome for one, that I was not greatly 
tempted. My object was not to hunt out the dar- 
ing, individual stunts; rather to find the easy, 
practicable ways of seeing the Laurentians, in- 
formation about which might be of some use, not 
to the abnormal rich, but to those with, say, pro- 
fessional purses, who might care to poke here and 
there into the hinterlands. A cross-country trip 
with two guides like that would cost from ten to 
fifteen dollars a day and involve paying the 
guides' return time. I asked amiable Mr. Aby- 
berg what next he had to show. 

He suggested canoeing down the waters of the 
Lievre to the Ottawa, from Mont Laurier, a two 
or three days ' trip ; or of taking a motor at Mont 
Laurier to Maniwaki, on the other branch of the 
C. P. R., thence down the Gatineau by canoe to the 
Ottawa, or by train to Ottawa, whence I could 
get into "real country," the famous regions of 
Temiskaming and Abitibi. I felt the good rail- 
road's pass nudging me in my hip-pocket. By 
merely saying Temiskaming to the conductor I 
could be magic-carpeted there in two days. I 
felt my pulse. Mr. Abyberg was saying, "You 
get off the train at Temiskaming and take the boat 
for Ville Marie, then drive to Gillies Bay on Lac 



120 THE LAURENTIANS 

des Quinze. That is a beautiful lake, full of fish, 
full of moose. Then to Lac Obikoba and the 
Lonely Eiver." (Pulse reaches eighty at the 
name.) Then to Lac Obasatika, Lac Dasserat, the 
Kanasuta Eiver, du Parquet, the Abitibi Eiver, 
and the Whitefish Eiver to La Sarre station on 
the Transcontinental. Beautiful wilderness all 
the way. You won't meet a soul." (Pulse 
ninety-five.) ''Or, if you want a more direct 
route, go from Lac des Quinze and Lac Barriere 
to Lac Kekeko. Oh, the moose that I 've seen 
there! And wild ducks! Yes, all the smaller 
game, beaver, otter, mink. The Indians trap it 
in the winter. Sure, they '11 talk to you ; some of 
them have picked up a little French at the posts. ' ' 
(Pulse here passes one hundred.) "Sure, it 's 
virgin territority. Then by Lac Kinojevis — the 
word means crooked — north to Eush Lake, by the 
river again to Duck Lake, and from then on you 
have dead water to the Villemontel Eiver. Go 
down that eleven miles to the road, and four miles 
to the railroad. See — " and he showed me the 
route on the map of the Abitibi region traversed 
by the Transcontinental (published by the Depart- 
ment of Lands and Forests of the Province of 
Quebec, January 4, 1911). 

The pass was now jumping around in my pocket 
and my heart in its bosom, v^hen my Motive 




Photograph by Walter Rutherford. 

Deep in the Bush. 



INFORMATION ONLY 121 

reached up and twitched my ear. ''You set out 
to do the Laurentians," it said sternly. 

''Is that region mountainous?" I asked Mr. 
Abyberg. He said that it wasn't. 

"In that case," pursued my Motive, "you have 
no business there; go east, young man." 

"In which case, Mr. Abyberg," I said, "I think 
I 'd better stick to the real Laurentians, north of 
Quebec City, say." 

"But the wildness, the easy rivers, the fishing 
that 's never been touched!" 

"North of Quebec for you, sir," said the Motive 
in both ears at once. 

"I can't hear you, Mr. Abyberg," I said. 

"The moose there!" he appeared to shout; 
' ' they '11 be standing in the rivers now. And the 
bear!" 

"Quebec, Quebec, Quebec, Que — " screeched 
that infernal Motive. 

"Oh, hell!" I said, in extremity. "Why did I 
ever begin it? Fifty thousand lakes, forty thou- 
sand rivers, each with a more beautiful name than 
the last, calling me to come and catch fish in 
them; moose parading the shores, bears scratch- 
ing down the trees, big-horned owls sitting in the 
branches ; river-life ; wilderness-life to be seen and 
to become intimate with, Indians to be met, their 
squaws befriended, the young girls to go a-pad- 
dling with, and with the young fellows perhaps 



122 THE LAURENTIANS 

plan a winter hunt — what agonies of decision lay 
on the pink and purple visage of that map ! There 
lay ten thousand destinations, and I had no- 
where to go ! 

I could not thank Mr. Abyberg enough at the 
time, nor now sufiSciently in print for his courtesy 
and kindness. His morning's labor opened to my 
mind vistas which I only hope may remain as they 
are until Motive and I can visit them with clear 
consciences. As matters stood I turned my back 
on Abitibi — my back once more laden with the 
duflfle-bag — and resumed the less thrilling occupa- 
tion of finishing up the vicinity. 

North of the Mont Tremblant region, through 
which the quadrilateral backbone of the Lauren- 
tian highland reaches eastward for 150 miles, the 
country declines in altitude and interest — at 
least near the railroad. The landscape, burned 
over at intervals, flattens out — not enough to pro- 
vide good farming, but sufficiently to lessen its 
hold on the imagination. It is like the let-down 
from being in an active thunder-gust to sitting 
in a mere rain. This comparison is taken from 
life, mine, and the date it occurred to me was the 
evening of my arrival in Nominingue. If I seem 
to underrate the value of my visit to that town I 
hope that the Nomininguans will consider the cir- 
cumstances : I had parted from the Wheelers with 
much regret. Night had fallen, and it is a brutish 



INFORMATION ONLY 123 

business arriving in a strange place in the dark. 
But with the night, fell also a rain, beginning with 
some sort of electrical good spirits, that wore off, 
however, as the storm approached Nominingue. 
There it, and I, simply descended. The station 
platform, a parallelogram bounded by deep mud, 
was entombed in darkness. I fell off it in the 
vicinity of the one vehicle apparent through the 
downpour, and scrambled in. This coach was 
open to the elements, which now began to collect 
in it, along with several unhappy travelers. 
I thought of Chopin's nocturnes, and wondered 
why he had limited himself to the one mood. 
Here was a variant from moon-lit gardens, musk- 
roses, and lone souls torn with passion. At least 
our passion was different. There we sat, bent, 
like caryatids meant to carry off the rain, out- 
doing each other in the fury of our silence. 
Presently the driver, having concluded some con- 
versation, climbed in and started us on a drive 
such as I trust I shall never be intrepid enough 
to risk again. For the man, suddenly realizing 
that it was raining, whipped up his horse — or 
horses, it was too dark to see which — and we be- 
gan to surge along the streets of Nominingue. 
In the dark they looked as wide as the streets of 
Petrograd, and they were much deeper. The 
rain changed to mud. Once we went into such a 
hole that I thought we were foundering. But 



124( THE LAURENTIANS 

finally we sluiced around a corner and arrived 
at the Hotel Victoria, so named, I suppose, to 
emphasize its era. It is a poor traveler who can- 
not accept the conditions, but it is a poor fool 
who repeats them. I scraped off the mud and 
went to bed. 'So this was exploration ! 

Nominingue, by day, was but little better, the 
mere parody of a place where human beings 
might be supposed to live hopefully and heartily. 
And yet what a situation! On one hand Lac 
Nominingue, stretching wide to intangible shores, 
lifted one's imagination swiftly from the near-by 
hovels into the eternal heavens. A point of land 
ran far out into the lake's blue waters, its green 
headland jeweled by a Jesuit resort. I wan- 
dered along the shore, wondering why the lovelier 
the scene the more poor-spirited its inhabitants, 
when I met a gentleman taking the air in paja- 
mas. A profusion of hair obscured the bumps 
on his head, but I trust there was one betokening 
veracity, for he began at once quoting the sizes 
of fish that he had caught. They were so prepos- 
terous as to ruffle even my gullible mind. One 
gray trout had tipped the scales or broken them, 
(I forget which), at twenty-five pounds; and he 
had caught a muskalonge in these valuable waters 
measuring thirty-seven inches around the stom- 
ach. It was seventy-six inches long, and weighed 
seventy-four pounds. Twelve years before a 



INFORMATION ONLY 125 

judge had taken a trout weighing thirty-eight 
pounds. I listened to him, as I used to listen to 
the habitants' wives numbering their offspring; 
that is, stupefied, but with tact. 

The people of Nominingue, fish or no fish, live 
only a few removes from paradise, as I discov- 
ered by climbing some of the little hills and walk- 
ing around little Nominingue to the beach village 
of Belle Rive. The entire region is adorned with 
lakes. The country is rolling and, in part, for- 
ested, and land is still cheap. Here is a place, 
near home, where one could enjoy frontier-life. 
By good luck I mentioned this to the Godard 
brothers, discreet, earnest, enthusiastic Nomin- 
inguans, and what they said about the countryside 
made me greedy to go into the hotel business, if 
only from the vain motive of showing that fresh 
paint, reachless rooms, and food prepared with- 
out flies and grease could attract the dollar from 
its civic haunts. I want to thank the Godards 
for attentions tendered. Some day they will 
offer Nominingue to the world, I believe, a 
painted and comfortable center to their corner 
of the land. 

From Belle Rive, whose lakeside inn offered 
fare which I fell on with enthusiasm, while sitting 
to a view of a broad blue expanse of water, I 
journeyed to Mont Laurier at the rails' end. To 
Mont Laurier come drummers, men who would 



126 THE LAURENTIANS 

buy wood, and those intending to venture wilder- 
nessward by the Riviere du Lievre. Two weeks* 
travel to the northeast the shiny girdle of the 
Transcontinental momentarily interrupts the end- 
lessness of forest. The leaping waters of the 
river were eloquent of days of poling, days of 
paddling, nights in camp. As they raced by, the 
rapids shouted explanations of what I should 
miss if I neglected that wild route north by 
Tapini. Had Fred been free, had the Provincial 
Government thought well of my expedition and 
lent a hand, had the wilderness been as inex- 
pensive as the Ritz, then I could have listened to 
those beautiful pleadings of the Lievre, have 
linked Mont Laurier to the St. Maurice. As it 
was, I, with all the feelings of a dumb deserted 
alley-dog, turned my back on the green shores of 
that marvelous forest-sea, and not at all like Co- 
lumbus, ordered a rig to Maniwaki. 

The vastness of Canada is inconceivable; the 
bush is monstrous. How vast, how monstrous, I 
was beginning to find out. I could have spent 
years visiting the lakes that drain into the 
Gatineau, that little river, the scene of a 
thousand lumber-jack exploits, which snakes its 
way from Maniwaki to Ottawa. But the call 
of Roberval, of Lac St. Jean, of the habitant 
homes along the Saguenay, was in my ears. So 
I did little more than take off my hat to the be- 



INFORMATION ONLY 127 

wildering variety of loveliness that lies to the 
north of Ottawa. 

Those whose lot is cast in Ottawa seem to me 
fortunate indeed. Theirs, I believe, is the neat- 
est, snuggest, cleanest little city that clings to 
our planet; a city whose prices do not suck at 
the purse, a city planned for the convenience of 
its citizens instead of the tram companies, and 
situated where to look up is to see trees and moun- 
tains and a noble river. It is a city intimate 
with great men, and designated for great men's 
use, with archives and museums and libraries and 
departments of research, to find the equal of 
which one must travel far. Only in my own 
Philadelphia of an earlier day could life run so 
evenly, so normally, with such interest and 
dignity. And to balance the intellectual oppor- 
tunities of Ottawa there lies that invitation to go 
a-fishing, a-hunting, a-roaming, at her every door. 
The troublesome desires of wealth are met by the 
untroubled desirability of woods and waters. 
The nerves of the nation can be soothed by after- 
noons afloat. Those responsible for the welfare 
of the great Dominion can talk over the affairs of 
state and empire beside camp-fires a league away. 
If this does not make for poise and wisdom, then 
the health of governments is to be despaired of. 

Feeling as some Cook tourist ought to feel as 
she scampers through the Louvre, I cast an eye 
on the charming Lac Mer Bleue, voyaged for a 



128 THE LAURENTIANS 

brief sunset on Lac 31 Milles, talked with the 
Indians at Maniwaki, then folded the map and 
posted on to Quebec City, in dolorous haste. 



CHAPTER IX 

THE LAUKENTIDB PARK AND LAKE EDWARD 

I HAVE always had my opinion of those sight- 
seers who rush up to a country and sniff at it 
and say they know it. Yet until now I had been 
guilty of much the same thing, of tearing around 
.Quebec's colossal Province, tagging a lake here 
a mountain there, and supposing that I was see- 
ing the Laurentians. 

But a change was now under way. In addi- 
tion to having fun I was to have satisfaction as 
well, was to see the country instead of merely 
blinking at it as it scooted past. I had reached 
a region where, instead of acting like a breath- 
less foreigner, I could get nativated, in turn be- 
coming Indian or habitant or voyageur. This 
welcome change was brought about in Prov- 
idence's usual enigmatic aggravating way. I 
had heard that the Government was using aero- 
planes for exploration purposes in the very re- 
gion that I wanted to explore. Since I was out 
to convert the world to Canada, a little aid from 
the Government did not seem unreasonable — to 

129 



130 THE LAURENTIANS 

me. So I applied for a permit. This was Mon- 
day. I was to hear on Tuesday. 

Tuesday came, and Tuesday week, and the 
Government still pondered over the permit. But 
meanwhile I had learned a lesson. This was: 
The more things one has to hope for, the richer 
life is. Day by day, now, I looked forward to 
two things; that permit, and Fred. The future 
was fairly thick with hope. Meanwhile, also, I 
was re-learning a second lesson: The way to 
travel is to stay in one place. Necessity had 
jerked me from my recent orbit and had said, 
''Sit there till you get your breath, and some 
sense with it." So I sat, sometimes in par- 
liamentary anterooms, but oftener on the brow of 
the great cliff, getting my breath, if not my per- 
mit, and inhaling history with each lungful. 

By the end of my second week I felt as if I had 
been to Europe. I had vaulted over the French 
Eevolution and landed at Montcalm's door (with 
a volume of Parkman in my pocket), whence it 
was only a step to the scene of the activities of 
Le Jeune, Brebeuf, and Marquette. Wlien I saw 
a boat coming up the St. Lawrence it was no mod- 
ern craft but the inquisitive bark of Champlain, 
who in 1608 first landed on the shore below me. 
When I looked from the citadel and saw the blue 
ranges of the Laurentians beckoning from the 
north, they were New France to me. 



THE PARK AND LAKE EDWARD 131 

For two weeks and a day I led a double life, 
sitting in the soft glamor of a northern June, 
reading ''The Old Regime in Canada" and ''The 
Jesuits in North America," living in spirit with 
Maisonneuve and Jeanne Mance, with Madame 
de la Peltrie who had such a taste for heroism, 
and with Frontenac who vainly desired that the 
Indian children acquire sedentary habits. I 
learned about Jean Talon who secured a peace 
with the Iroquois for sixteen years, and begged 
three hundred settlers a year from the frugal 
Louis, this Talon who built ships for trading and 
fishing, w^ho closed the gap between Montreal and 
Quebec by planting settlements, who suggested 
other routes for ships than the ice-bound St. 
Lawrence, and sent men to look for minerals, and 
established the potash industry, and had the girls 
of France selected and sent over that soldiers 
might be eugenically mated. Talon was almost a 
new name to me; I ended thinking him near the 
greatest of them all. I strode about the streets 
in a haze of the sixteen hundreds, seeing not 
moving-picture ads but in my mind's eye that first 
deer-baited garden of Louis Hebert's, the first soil 
turned in upper Quebec town. I saw the hab- 
itants come in to see the sights, sometimes with 
their engages, the servants, or with the hiver- 
nants, the hardy traders who stood the winter 
through. I tried to realize that even after Cham- 



132 THE LAURENTIANS 

plain died the population of the grim rock was 
only eighty-five (twenty-three of them habitants, 
eleven interpreters, fourteen clerks connected 
with the fur company, ten priests, seven traders, 
and twenty trappers). And it was not hard to 
picture the aborigines attending the civic cer- 
emonies in a sort of rapture, to see the sweating 
earnestness of the priests, the coureurs des hois 
arriving and departing on their romantic jour- 
neys — in short the whole vivid, living panorama 
painted on the screen of time forever by Francis 
Parkman. He, as ill as Stevenson but with as 
invincible a courage, made himself into an 
historic glass, so clear and of such strong focus 
that the annals of New France glow and throb 
with the intensity of their times still undimin- 
ished, thanks to the singular felicity of his genius 
for such work. To look up from my book was to 
hear the cries and see the colors of 1650, the little 
fleet dropping down stream on its autumnal voy- 
age home, bearing the year's ''Relation" from 
the banded black-robed Jesuits on the shore, bear- 
ing, also, their request for urgent help in the pur- 
suance of their dream, the dream destined to be 
frustrated by French inability to risk a little gold 
for future good. History is God's diary, I think, 
and certainly in the long run shows the rightness 
of Justice's scales. 
But even the double life grows at length con- 



THE PARK AND LAKE EDWARD 133 

fining. Popping out of Parkman's pages into 
arid anterooms began to pall. Besides I had met 
a fascinating authority on the region, Mr. E. T. D. 
Chambers, whose time I devoured in large chunks 
while listening to accounts of his battles with the 
ouananiche, his travels up the Peribonka and the 
Mistassini; and I was soon once more afire to 
foot it. Mr. Chambers in addition lent me his 
book, *'The Ouananiche and Its Canadian En- 
vironment" (now undeservedly out of print), 
which further inflamed my desire to reach La 
Grande Decharge by July when the fish do. So 
with a final French promise that the permit 
would soon be ready, I took train to Lake Ed- 
ward, a half-way point on the road to Lake St. 
John. 

The train starts early and gives one opportu- 
nity to see more burned forest than is possible, 
I should suppose, in any other hundred miles. I 
am sorry for the traveler who sees Canada only 
from the railroad. For a burn with its ghastly 
trees of the dead, its blighted underbrush, the 
naked rocks staring like corpses with the eyes un- 
closed, the ravines starved of their brooks, and 
no hope of future growth until the age-long cycle 
of lichen, moss, and soil is performed — this sight 
hurts any one with any capacity for reflection. 
And it is this sight that feeds the eye along most 
of the 190 miles to Lake St. John. It does not 



134! THE LAURENTIANS 

look like hell, exactly, for that would be interest- 
ing; but as if the devil had cast a side-sneer in 
passing. Chin in hand, I stared from my window 
trying to picture the bush beyond the burn. 
Even the facts are sufficiently romantic: 

On my left lay a vast region of rolling country, 
the watershed of the St. Maurice, on my right the 
even wilder territory comprising the Laurentide 
National Park. The strip of desolation through 
which we rumbed was, they informed me, quite 
narrow. 

In 1895 when national parks were not so much 
the rage, either of animal-lovers or game-hogs, 
some far-seeing statesmen set aside the moun- 
tainous region contained between the St. Law- 
rence, the Saguenay, and the present Lake St. 
John Railroad and called it the Laurentide Na- 
tional Park, ^'a forest reservation, fish and game 
preserve, public park and pleasure-ground." 
The area now under protection amounts to 3700 
square miles. This territory has been removed 
from sale or settlement forever, though timber 
limits in it are leased to pulp companies and also 
the fishing and hunting rights to private clubs. 
Furthermore the publicness of the park must not 
be taken too much for granted, for one has to buy 
a permit, before entering, from the Department of 
Colonization, Mines, and Fisheries at Quebec. 

The leasing to private clubs seems to be work- 



THE TARK AND LAKE EDWARD 135 

ing out well, at least as far as the Government 
and the club members are concerned. Club lands 
now form virtually a cordon around the park 
through which it is impossible for the poaching 
public to pass, since club guardians and park 
guards unite in an able vigilance-committee. 
The result is that both game and fish are in- 
creasing in numbers, and forest-fires are quelled 
at the beginning. Twelve rivers have their 
source in the park, and deforestation would have 
injured the water-supply of the future. 

In this varied Eden a man can buy a permit, 
hire a guide, lease an outfit, and invest in a little 
moose-hunting, the license of course first having 
been purchased. More interesting than moose- 
kilhng, however, is to visit le Grand Jardin des 
Ours where caribou, in increasing numbers, con- 
gregate near the end of October. The "garden" 
is a replica of the more northern barrens, with a 
few stunted trees and a carpet of thick moss. It 
covers nearly a hundred square miles. Occasion- 
ally in summer deer can be found by the lakes, 
and the wardens report bear. The beaver are 
already abundant in certain quarters, and the 
usual fur-bearers, mink, otter, rat, and the foxes, 
are increasing in numbers. The park is rapidly 
becoming a sort of fountain of wild life which 
overflows its invisible boundaries to the benefit 
of the border-hunters. 



136 THE LAURENTIANS 

My aoquaintance with the park was chiefly 
aerial. I did not see a caribou, nor yet a wolf, 
though packs of these still harass the deer. 
Sometimes from the planes aviators can see 
moose standing in the rivers or swimming the 
lakes : such was not my luck. Neither did I catch 
any ten-pound trout from Grand Lac Jacques 
Cartier, though several speckled trout of ten 
pounds have been caught. 

If one happens to be in the North near Lake 
St. John, the best entrance to the park is from 
Metabouchouan. Wild scenery begins at once, 
or at least after the fifteen-mile drive to Lac La 
Belle Riviere where, on the north side of the lake, 
the superintendent of the park has his camp. Six 
miles further you are at a famous river, the 
Riviere aux Ecorces, which you can follow for 
days, up or down, fishing all the time. If you are 
energetic you can go across the park in a week of 
leisurely travel to Grand Lac Jacques Cartier, at 
the outlet of which is supposed to be some of the 
best trout-fishing in the world. The easiest way 
to get there, however, is to drive first by automo- 
bile and then by rig from Quebec. The Govern- 
ment has a camp at Lac a Noel, where you spend 
the night. There is a map of the park published in 
1908 and giving only a very sketchy outline of the 
territory, but it is much better than hearsay, or 
even guide-say, and may be obtained from the De- 




Courtesy of C. P. R. 



Montmorency Falls. 



THE PARK AND LAKE EDWARD 137 

partment of Colonization, Mines, and Fisheries 
for a dollar. With this, and time, and consider- 
able money, any one can plan out a trip which 
will bring him in a store of recollections. 

By this time the train had reached the Batiscan, 
the tempestuous little river which has the grace 
to amuse the brule-wearied passengers for thirty 
miles. We were climbing, for Lake Edward lies 
nearly 1300 feet above the sea. Occasionally we 
would pass a clearing wherein some sheep, 
usually with boards about their necks, were 
nibbling. Those boards, I should think, would 
seriously interfere with the texture of the mutton. 
Surely a sheep subjected to such irritation must 
grow tough from swearing. 

At the little stations the total population of the 
vicinity had collected, backwoodsmen surely. I 
missed the wolfish vulgarity of the Broadway 
face ; the women had never heard of powder, nor 
the men of ''business is business." I think I pre- 
fer women with wind-reddened faces; for then 
there is a chance that their hearts are still a nat- 
ural pink. And I am sure that I like best men 
who are good-natured and not yet aware that 
there's a price-tag on everything, if you are 
shrewd enough to find it. Their freedom is not 
yet on sale. To be sure it is not one-tenth so 
comfortable as the Broadway slavery; yet it is 
theirs. And I am sure that it is better to fare a 



138 THE LAURENTIANS 

mile along your own road than be motored forty 
leagues along another's. Most men have only 
a part interest in life; and for fear of poverty, 
or the lost esteem of others, or even from mis- 
taken sympathies, they lose the satisfaction and 
thrills of mastership. Not so with these lean, 
unshaven, pipe-sucking mountaineers grouped by 
their sterile fields. Their clothes, their fleshly 
garments, were as worn and weather-stained as 
the lean, thin bush about them. But their eyes! 
They looked at you, levelly, without envy, often 
with a smile of equality. I could admire and 
fraternize with them. Compared with the slink- 
ing, harried, envious eyes of Broadway these had 
a royal look. The old, old question : Would you 
rather be king of a northern berry-pasture, or 
cog in a soulless corporation? The answer is 
easy: Whichever helps you along your own 
road — yours. 

I was now counting on the brothers Rowley to 
help me along mine. From my earliest visits to 
Champlain's city I had heard of these men, I 
had visualized them in a dozen Cooperesque en- 
vironments, all but riding to the stag-hunt on 
caparisoned nags, certainly directing their corps 
of guides with, let us say, insouciance and a cer- 
tain flair. God help all visualizers ! 

Lake Edward consisted, to my disappointed 
gaze, of a roundhouse, some deserted mills, a 



THE PARK AND LAKE EDWARD 139 

store. I inquired for Rowley, and was thumbed 
toward the store. Inside, a big man with gray- 
ing hair, and the kindly uncompromising expres- 
sion of a train conductor, was leaning over an 
immense ledger, adding up, I suppose, his wealth. 
I waited, then — 

*' Where can I find Mr. George Rowley, sir?" 

"Here, sir." 

Another pause. ''Did you get a letter from 
me ten days ago ? ' ^ 

''I think we did. I guess we were just going 
to answer that." 

"Well, no matter now, I 'm here. I can have 
a guide for the BostonnaisI" 

' ' The water 's very low. ' * 

"But I suppose one can start, anyway." My 
rage was mounting. Why hadn't they written 
if the water was too low, as I had asked. 

"Oh, yes," between columns of figures, "I 
guess you can start. My brother tends to that 
end of the game — three-hundred five, three hun- 
dred thirteen." 

Another pause. It is such a nuisance being 
short. If I had been six foot nine I am sure I 
should not have felt so hopeless before him. I 
looked around the store. It was stocked thought- 
fully and with good brands, a mouth-watering 
anthology of meals. I looked at the men leaning 
on the counter or sitting in the wall-dusk. They 



140 THE LAURENTIANS 

seemed thoughtful and of a good brand, too, 
though thinly sugared with the amenities. Then 
out of a clear column — he had reached the nine 
hundreds — came the words, '* Arthur, take the 
gentleman to his room, please ' ' ; and I was shown 
to a little eaves place, wondering in my wrath 
how the Rowleys had ever got their reputation, 

I found out — at their own good time. That 
evening we sat around the store and I got ac- 
quainted with George Eowley; a man who had 
grown up with the country, and had become its 
master, by dint of foresight, honesty, and applica- 
tion. Nor is that highland country an easy realm 
to lord it over, with its roughness, its pest of flies, 
its seven months of cold, and its irresponsibles. 
He was, I found, storekeeper to half a kingdom; 
and I ceased to wonder at the busy ledger. It 
was his job to grub-stake shanty-men, to outfit 
sports, to play postmaster, and keep the poachers 
out of the park, to be first aid to forest fires in a 
radius of fifty miles. 

His brother Eobert, younger, married, fine- 
looking, and with the address of a college man, 
joined us. His part of this concern was the 
management of guests. He arranged not only 
for the parties into their own leased wilderness 
(covering 750 square miles, and including about 
150 lakes), but also despatched parties of explora- 
tion into the farthest wilds, Chibougamou, Lake 



THE PARK AND LAKE EDWARD 141 

Mistassini, and Hudson's Bay. That, also, is 
not a task for inexperience. By choosing the 
wrong guides, by leaving out the ammunition or 
falling short on flour, he could easily have dead 
men on his conscience. The bush will not be 
played with. 

That was a great evening. I sat on the counter, 
Bob Rowley on a keg of nails, and his brother not 
far from that eternal ledger, with two guides 
looking on in affirmative silence through the dusk 
caused by a veteran lamp. The older brother 
supplied the reminiscence, the younger one en- 
thusiasm, until I felt that it was ridiculous of me 
to go further. The Almighty, in making Lake 
Edward, had evidently had the Rowleys and their 
guests in mind. 

In the morning, while they were packing sup- 
plies for my guide and me, since I contemplated 
looking at the Bostonnais no matter how dry, 
I strolled down toward the sanatorium and stum- 
bled on one of those refreshing surprises which 
may occur wherever there are human beings; to 
wit, a hero at his post. For all that it was June, 
summer, and within a fortnight of the day when 
the sun should turn and begin his ebb-march, a 
brisk wind blew from the polar spaces, and goose- 
flesh formed on the geese who had donned summer 
underwear. I sat in the reception-room, listen- 
ing to the gale in the eaves, and picturing the 



142 THE LAURENTIANS 

nine months of winter, the long dark, the ines- 
capable isolation, the routine of tubercular wards, 
the responsibility of the man in charge. He had 
to keep the routine sweet, the dying cheerful, 
their nurses sane. I felt the childishness of the 
most of our complaints when we deem that our 
deserved portion of happiness has not been served 
us. Then Dr. J. A. Couillard came in; and at a 
glance I could see that Dr. Trudeau's spirit had 
penetrated to this outpost of the North. 

Dr. Couillard had held the fort already for six 
years, and had made the Lake Edward Sana- 
torium what it is, the one place east of Ste. Agathe 
where the tubercular can go in hopes of cure. 
The doctor is young and scholarly and versatile 
and enthusiastic and an organizer. With eager- 
ness he showed me the barber-shop where he 
plays barber and the dentist-chair where he as- 
sists nature, the library which could accommodate 
a few more books, and the porches whence the 
patients look day after day into the unnamed, un- 
traveled ranges to the southwest. 

Lake Placid lies but ten miles from Saranac 
Lake, and I am well acquainted with the mo- 
mentous work that Dr. Trudeau, fils, Dr. Baldwin, 
and the others, to whom the mantle has fallen, 
carry on. I have seen their magnificent equip- 
ment, too. So to be shown the little den in which 
Dr. Couillard labors was to bring back to me the 



THE PARK AND LAKE EDWARD 143 

primiti.ve days of the Trudeau ''Autobiography." 
Dr. Couillard's energy, his hopefuhiess that the 
frugal Pro\diice might soon take an interest in 
his work, his courage and good cheer, must 
quicken the spirit of those about to die, or 
better, cure them. In fact his average of cures 
is very high. I stepped from his threshold re- 
freshed. I had come to Lake Edward expecting 
to be entranced by the renowned Rowleys; I 
left, captivated by the unheard-of Dr. Couillard. 
The gray Fates must have their little joke. 

Indeed the Fates were now in a highly affable 
mood ; and their first service to me was to supply 
as guide Louis Loquax. Loquax of course was 
not the name bestowed on him by prophetic fore- 
sight, but by me in thankfulness that he was not 
another Jules the Speechless. I was now nearer 
that region of the true, undiluted French- 
Canadian, whose pastime is his talk. To get 
French Canada at its creamiest, go from Quebec 
to the He d 'Orleans, thence along the North Shore 
to Tadousac, and up the Saguenay to the He 
d'Alma (of which haven more anon), to Rober- 
val and St. Felicien. This great V is New France 
still, fervent, old-fashioned, and full of conversa- 
tion. Loquax came from St. Felicien. 

To get an idea of the Rowleys' realm, picture 
a lake twenty miles long, broad and narrow 
by turns, and as full of moods as a type-setter. 



144 THE LAURENTIANS 

Sometimes out shoots a leg, as in the chorus, and 
sometimes an arm. The arms are reaching for 
other lakes just across the hills, and often they 
are rewarded. The result is that from half a 
dozen bays on Lake Edward you can connect by 
stream or portage with twice two dozen other 
streams or ponds, and travel for days in the 
territory belonging to Laurentide House without 
running on the same rocks twice. It is an in- 
triguing situation, and the Rowleys have made the 
best of it by erecting camps and shelters at in- 
tervals when the canoeist is just growing shy of 
more labor. The first few of these can even be 
reached by motor-boat; and in summer, when 
families are ensconced about the wilderness, a 
daily round is made with provisions. But I have 
a spaniel shyness of motor-boats (and good rea- 
son in these northern and most unmechanical 
wilds), so Loquax and I, leaving Mr. George bend- 
ing over his ledger in the dusky store, set forth 
on a flat-clouded forenoon, headed for the Ri- 
viere aux Rats and the Bostonnais. 

Heaven and my publishers forbid that I wax as 
garrulous over the next five days as did Louis Lo- 
quax. I shall chiefly say that the jaunt was 
worth while, but not because it was as advertised. 
We saw moose-bushes and some deer-grass, a 
fish-hawk or two and some bare rocks. But of 
moose, deer, fish, or bear — next to nothing. Some- 



THE PARK AND LAKE EDWARD 145 

how, from conversations, I had gathered the no- 
tion that one had to wind one's way among the 
moose to avoid bumping into them; and that the 
bears scattered before one only to re-assemble 
in curious groups behind. In our case they had 
scattered to Labrador for the season. Our larg- 
est trout was under three pounds. But I think 
my chief disappointment was the third-growth 
forest. 

Let me quote, verbatim, from the sort of rap- 
ture that is the traditional mode of forest adver- 
tisement: ''Beneath the umbrageous protection 
of majestic forests, hidden in the sheltered recess 
of a trackless wilderness, bordered completely 
by pompous wood-crowned mountains, reposes, 
in peaceful seclusion, a glassy lake. Imperial 
domes of mutable green rear their reverential 
crests above its incurvated shores, made musical 
by the chirrup of wild birds ..." I would like to 
see the imperial domes, that think out such rever- 
ential rubbish, hunting around in the dark for a 
httle dry fire-wood in the aspen-covered areas 
made desolate by repeated fires. Later I was to 
see the primeval forest in its full dignity and 
beauty. There one did not want to slobber ad- 
jectives over it. There one was constrained to 
meet its silence with silence. Its magnanimity 
kindles an inexpressible elation. This babbling in 
advertisements of what does not exist reacts dis- 



146 THE LAURENTIANS 

astrously on the advertised. What deception 
loses, candor might have won. The interest of 
Lake Edward lies not in nmbrageons forests or in 
a concourse of bears, but in the fact that during 
the fishing months of June and September there 
are great catches possible, and in the availability 
of other territory, access to which is made easy 
by the Rowley organization. 

That afternoon Loquax and I paddled the ten 
miles to the mouth of the Rat River, up its wind- 
ing length for half a mile, and poled a mile and 
a quarter, making camp by an old dam in use 
when the region was lumbered. 

The sun that afternoon must have got awfully 
tired of watching me try to pole. For a prod- 
ess that looks so simple, poling is a delusion and 
the river-bed a snare. The idea is to stick a 
pole into the bottom and lightly waft the canoe 
against the current. An Indian can slither the 
thing upstream faster than I can walk along the 
shore. He can do it all day, furthermore. Blis- 
ters and I were never so thankful as when we 
saw that dam. There we camped. I tried for 
trout and got some suckers. ^'Un trou du fou/' 
said Loquax grinning. 

I would go so far as to say that in the bush 
the guide is the trip. Sullen, stupid, lazy, or de- 
ceitful, he can mar a sojourn in paradise; perse- 
vering, intelligent, good-humored, he will make 



THE PARK AND LAKE EDWARD 147 

even the brule passable. Loquax was lazy but 
with a sense of humor, and as we had no objec- 
tive but a sight of the Bostonnais, did very well. 
That first evening, after talking the usual exag- 
gerations about game which all guides think that 
all sportsmen like to hear, he told about his work 
in the shanties, from that to fairy-tales, and from 
those to riddles. Here is one I had never heard 
before, and wager you '11 not guess : 

**Qu' est-ce que le bon Dieu ne voit jamais, le 
pretre rarement, mais un fermier tous les jours?" 

I was stumped; if the hon Dieu never saw it, 
how could I be expected to know about it, I asked 
Loquax. He rolled up in merriment, his ruddy 
little cheeks jumping, his black eyes popping. 
''His shadow, naturellement/' he cried when he 
could keep it in no longer. 

The Eat River affords variety certainly. Next 
day we had three miles on the dam-broadened 
river, a short portage around rapids, a one-and- 
a-half mile paddle and a half-mile portage on 
good trail. These portages are all marked. 
Then marshy country along the river for a mile 
and a half, two portages aggregating three- 
quarters of a mile in one, in fact several short 
portages alternating with short paddles till we 
came to the end of the Rat and camped. A porcu- 
pine and young sheldrakes constituted the visi- 
ble menagerie of the day. 



148 THE LAURENTIANS 

The drouglit was now well established over the 
land, and each morning we woke to the well- 
known haze, each evening dismissed a sun frowsy 
with the heat. This third day brought us over a 
two-mile carry to Lac Pete, from Lac Pete due 
east (instead of the usual westerly trend we had 
been taking) to Lac Clair, about three-quarters 
of a mile. Lac Clair is a charming lake, with 
two islands in it. I indulged in a swim to the 
nearest — Loquax, I hope, envying me. He had 
been too lazy to learn. In fact most guides and 
river-men are unable to swim, which to me seems 
as ridiculous as for pianists not to be able to read 
notes or priests say their prayers. You can im- 
agine how self-reliant a Canuck must feel, when, 
in an emergency on the water, he cannot rely on 
himself. 

From Lac Clair you cross the divide, a rough 
bit of portaging three miles long, with deadfalls, 
to Eighth Lake, which is two miles in length. 
Thence, should you be going down the Bostonnais 
to La Tuque (a trip which is not only supposed 
to be very beautiful but also lined with bears), 
you are confronted by a five-mile carry! Even 
if you are stopping with Eighth Lake, as were 
we, don't fail to walk down that trail until you 
get the view of the Bostonnais Valley; it is the 
finest single scenic item at Lake Edward. The 
Bostonnais is one of the largest tributaries of 



THE PARK AND LAKE EDWARD 149 

the St. Maurice, and as you stand near the brink 
of the gorge that it has cut, you look past a great 
sand-bank and for a moment forget the third- 
growth bush in the panorama beyond, the distant 
forest falling into the five hundred foot gulf, the 
green contours, and the stillness. Beauty effaces 
the flies, the heat, and Loquax. You know that 
this is an imperishable moment, that it is good 
to have come. 



CHAPTER X 

MAEIA CHAPDELAINE OF PEEIBONKA 

'OW was to begin my comparatively golden 
era. Heaven, it seems to any traveler, is 
a place where one can do a little permanent un- 
packing. In Eoberval I expected to unpack, al- 
though I was not counting on calling the place 
heaven. Not, certainly, that first evening. 

There ought to be some stimulant which ar- 
riving strangers could take which would not in- 
capacitate them for registering at the desk and 
yet would make them feel immediately at home. 
It is hateful enough to arrive anywhere; but to 
arrive in a small town is worse; and to arrive 
in a foreign small town, whose only hostelry it 
is beneath the range of polite adjectives to de- 
scribe, this scarcely suggests the celestial wicket 
gate. But remember, nothing really matters to 
a man except his fellow-men, and in Eoberval — 
.But, I anticipate; I have not yet arrived. 

The rail journey from Lake Edward to Cham- 
board Junction where one changes for Eoberval 

150 



MARIA CHAPDELAINE OF PERIBONKA 151 

liad heard that the Government was using air- 
an observation hind-end, whence one could more 
intimately observe the blackened stumps and 
stunted second growths of the forest, now civil- 
ized nearly out of existence. Rrumpety-bumpty- 
bumpty-bumpty went the irregular refrain of the 
equally irregular wheels; clickety-clickty-clickty- 
click chirruped the rails as we frisked around the 
curves. Rrumpety-bumpty-clickety-clank — an in- 
conceivably soothing song. But it must have an- 
noyed the bears, for I did not see one. 

The moose, however, were less touchy. One 
old gaunt cow hobbled out of the engine's way 
and stood in the river, unable to place the appari- 
tion. Even with the first yards of leg hidden by 
a pretty river, a she-moose is, my gallantry regrets 
to say, even more hideous than the he, a dingy, 
hump-backed, hooked-nosed, clothes-horse of a 
sight. To be adrift on a little lake in the quiet 
night and hear the call of some cow is to be stirred 
as no orchestra can stir one; or to have a bull 
materialize from nothing against a fading sky, 
the imbodiment of an antlered dignity almost 
passed from earth, — then your heart beats ad- 
miration. But mostly I advise the moose family 
to keep out of sight if they wish to be eulogized, 
for their combination of humps and hide is dis- 
astrous, esthetically speaking. As our train wig- 
gled out of sight the aged cow stalked rheumatic- 



152 THE LAURENTIANS 

ally back to the track, doubtless inveighing against 
civilization in her mind. 

The sixty-five miles from Lake Edward to 
Chambord acclimated my mind to space. We 
were high and could look far. The distant ranges, 
huckleberry hued, sustained my imagination 
that drooped whenever I looked near-by at the 
fire-desecrated forest with the futile signs tacked 
to dead trees at the stations : 

Arretez un Instant. 
Jetter les allumettes enflammees 
Ou laisser des Feux allumes, 
Est-ce prudent? 

After the horse is stolen we lock the stable 
door, presumably to protect the mice. 

Mistake me not; I am coming to a different 
story soon. For days I was to dwell in the prim- 
eval bush, the reposeful mirror of its Maker's 
mind, enchanted. In this book I am trying not to 
sidestep the truth, and refuse to call the spades 
I met dessert-spoons. Canada is God's country; 
I only wonder that He does not squirm a bit at 
the thought of certain sections. But at Kis- 
kisink, or at Van Bruyssels — named for a 
charming and hospitable gentleman who is de- 
veloping that region, — at Lac Long or Lizotte or 
Lac Commissionaire, in short anywhere that one 
chooses to step off the train, the bush is wait- 
ing to receive one. Three strokes of the paddle 



INIARIA CHAPDELAINE OF PERIBONKA 153 

and one has rounded isome point and put the tin 
cans and discomforts of a too-new civilization 
behind. 

At four-thirty of a placid afternoon our loose- 
jointed train manoeuvered around the last curve 
above Chambord, and, as paradise opens out 
before a mystic's eyes, there unfolded before 
mine the blue, composure-blest, wide waters of 
St. John, and beyond, the dim, wild gateways 
to the space-begotten North! 

Any man who lives much out of doors learns 
his kinship with nature as cannot the man of of- 
fices and elevators. Little by little he becomes 
earth's son and brother to the rain; and it does 
not seem at all queer to him that the Indians, who 
are as close to nature as fruit to the tree, should 
believe that the leaves can overhear their talk. 
On this trail back to naturalness a man thinks 
more and more of the North, because it signifies 
all that has never been man-handled. Its names 
are a lure to him, and its conditions a dare ; and 
when it finally bursts on him in such a view as 
that above the hamlet of Chambord, the effect 
is like a dream come true. 

From the moment I debarked at Chambord 
until, moons later, I left the storied coves of Ta- 
dousac, I was to dwell in habitant-land. And 
whatever I may say about it, I have an affection 
for habitant-land that corresponds indeed to the 



154j the LAURENTIANS 

affection one has for childhood's sunniest hours. 
It is a land of far-away. 

My entrance into it was made in probably the 
dirtiest train that has ever been jerked along the 
rails. The car was full of near neighbors, ap- 
parently, for everybody was talking in unison 
and splashing along the tobaccoed aisles, visiting 
each other. The men spat like northeasters, and 
I found myself speculating as to how deep waters 
must be before the moon can cause tides. 

There was a charm about this quite inexplic- 
able but real. I think it was because everybody 
looked so healthy, and so ravishingly happy. The 
women had personality. It was evidently in- 
tended for girls to lead the habitant life, for color 
and figure and expression were theirs. They 
talked with all their features, incessantly, never 
pausing to catch anybody else 's views on the 
matter under discussion. In fact the twenty or 
thirty separate conversations dissolved into a 
cheerful cloud of chatter that arose toward the 
ceiling with the smoke. Unluckily the ventilators 
were not open, and the air grew rather dense with 
talk. Perhaps that is why I could not under- 
stand it. Louis and I had just spent intelligible 
days together : and now I might as well have been 
in Persia. Dialogue in French is one thing; the 
crowd-clamor is another. 

The men were almost as vivacious as the 



MARIA CHAPDELAINE OF PERIBONKA 155 

women, and, unit for unit, finer-looking. Their 
long days in the fields following a long winter in 
the bush had put well-wrought flesh on muscle, and 
the bloom of health atop all. There were no bald- 
heads, no blonds. Dark, glowing eyes, and some- 
times splendid profiles and chins, were spoiled 
by wretched teeth. There are obviously no den- 
tists in French Canada. They probably have 
all gone insane at the prospect. With cared-for 
teeth, and an infusion of a little noble discontent, 
the habitants would make as handsome a nation 
as there is. Despite the reek and clatter of 
that car, I felt a certain elation in being with 
them. ''Here," said I to myself, ''I have found a 
people knowing what they want. " In an hour we 
had skirted Lake St. John westwards to Rober- 
val. 

Life is a perpetual sloping up toward some ec- 
static moment and a slipping back again. That 
evening at supper I touched bottom with, to all 
appearances, an infernal finality. There was a 
letter from Fred with another postponement. 
There was no letter containing my permit to fly. 
My table companions champing on their food in- 
terested me, at that moment, no more than so 
many animated bathroom tiles. The food looked 
sooty and colorless. And I could not make out 
what the waitress was saying to me. 

* ' Soupeatamatessoupeapois ! ' ' 



156 THE LAURENTIANS 

Oh! It is perfectly clear now, after twenty-one 
suppers beginning precisely in the same manner. 
But it was n 't then. She was too high-strung to 
be a waitress, anyway. Waiting less than a sec- 
ond for my decision she geared up the remark a 
notch higher and volleyed forth again, "Soupea- 
tamatessoupeapois!" Prestissimo agitato. 

**Merci," I said, judging that the tomato- 
colored water in my neighbor 's plate w^as scarcely 
worth the time. 

'^Steakjambonoeufs," now said the waitress in 
an unintelligible streak. 

'' Comment r' 

''Steakjamboneufs!" Now I admit that the 
thing looks simple enough in print; but, as a 
menu, the remark failed utterly. 

The temperamental female stood by waiting in a 
sort of crystallized shrug, that most detestable 
of all gestures, whilst I bethought me of the word 
for ''anything." My fellow-feeders gnawed to 
themselves, offering no assistance, and I was 
about to let the capricious she choose for me 
when a voice, behind, in heavenly English said, 
''Don't risk the eggs." 

My fellow-sufferer was young, as I saw by 
turning gratefully, tall and easy-smiling and from 
the States. 

"What would you advise?" I asked. 



MARIA CHAPDELAINE OF PERIBONKA 157 

''Always the steak," said he; ''are you here 
for long?" 

Thus Phil Kimball fell fortuitously into the 
loneliness of that evening. Later we strolled 
Eoberval's one thoroughfare and discussed the 
future. Phil was selling tractors, and had been 
waiting in Roberval in an agony of indolence for 
some ten days until some mis-freighted parts 
should arrive. Since he was in Roberval there 
was no sense in leaving, with his job undone ; yet 
each succeeding hour that he waited brought him 
an ever more crushing appreciation of life 's fatui- 
ties, and especially life in Roberval. To compre- 
hend this one must first have been a rather lively 
young man in New York and then spend a week in 
Roberval, where the facilities for Kveliness con- 
sist of a cigarette-shop, a barber-shop, and Ma- 
demoiselle Huot's. There once had been a hotel, 
but that had burned down. There once had been a 
moving-picture place ; but that had been adjudged 
harmful to the laity by the church, and closed. No 
matter how short a life one enjoyed, providing 
it was spent in Roberval, one would die feeling 
full of years. At least this was the sum of 
Philip 's paroxysms. I had seen nothing yet with 
which to confute them. In order not to seem void 
of my own woes I told my sympathetic mate of 
my efforts toward a flying permit. 



158 THE LAURENTIANS 

'*Yes, there is a flight from here nearly every 
day," he said. 

''I stay until I fly," I said, in a wave of stub- 
bornness. 

**I stay till those tractor parts come," said he. 
**Long life to us." 

"In Eoberval." 

And being in a way set, we began to enjoy our- 
selves. 

The morrow was the Sabbath. All over French 
Canada the population would be stringing to 
church, the rest of the day to be hallowed unto 
sport or relaxation. My relaxation began at 
breakfast. No longer afraid that I should get no 
food, I could study our unique waitress as one 
studies Sarah Bernhardt. She had only less va- 
riety. The morning rites began always in the 
same way. Bernhardt, wiping a hand or putting 
the last twitch to her hair, would saunter through 
the kitchen door looking like the chapter in ''La- 
mentations" wherein all is considered vanity. 
If this did not move Phil and me to praise, her 
face would fall and she would drag her feet, as if 
she were Phasdra mourning her infants slain. If 
this still did not move us she would become down- 
right unpleasant; and to forestall this moment 
we always had some remark ready to the effect 
that she was more beautiful than lilies or the 



MARIA CHAPDELAINE OF PERIBONKA 159 

rosy footed dawn. In reality — but why spoil the 
picture? It pleased the simple girl. She bright- 
ened up hke a kerosene torch and then asked 
whether we would have ' 'Steak jambonoefscaf e- 
duthe." On replying, *' Steak," she would start 
toward the kitchen, releasing high stacatto yells 
to warn the keeper of the steak to have some 
ready. As a waitress she was unusual. 

It was Sunday morning in Roberval, as doubt- 
less over the rest of our hemisphere, but others 
had none such. A wind from the northwest dark- 
ened the face of the lake, carrying gallant clouds 
from its far haunts of mystery and beauty. 
And as the people poured from the church I 
heard such questions as '*Do you think they '11 
goV ''Isn't it too rough?" "Are you com- 
ing, Ducharme?" "Non, 'fait fret," which is 
their way of saying "il fait froid." 
i^It transpired that there was to be a picnic across 
the lake; and thanks to Phil, who was now a 
pillar of Roberval society, I was invited. The 
dock was at the other end of town, and thither 
the whole town was moving. I had seen no vessel 
larger than a tug, and wondered how such unanim- 
ity was to be taken care of. Automobiles, bug- 
gies, and other rigs shot by, from church to 
wharf, each bulging with happy ex-worshippers 
and picnickers-to-be. Little did I know the true 



160 THE LAURENTIANS 

gala spirit of the French-Canadian. These peo- 
ple were going only to see us off, to know that we 
were happy. 

I thought to inquire our destination. *'Peri- 
bonka, Monsieur." 

Peribonka. I had heard of the river, and an- 
other association of the name floated in my 
hind-head, tenuously, ungraspably; and I did not 
grope for it. There was too much to see ; for our 
craft, studded with rapturous lunchers-out, after 
turning around twice in the minute harbor, made 
straight for sea. As it left I caught sight of the 
flying-boat, sitting on the waters and brooding, 
doubtless, over the sights that it had seen. 
^ My glimpses of Lake St. John had been merely 
past the various buildings which, lie between 
Eoberval's sidewalk and the surf. Now I gazed 
with enthusiasm on the scene which had thrilled 
its discoverer in 1647, the energetic de Quen. 
This ardent Father commenced a series of ex- 
plorations in 1636 for the spread of the Jesuit 
doctrines and actually saw what Eoberval set out 
to see a century before. Of Eoberval's expedi- 
tion the only thing known is that one boat upset 
and eight men were drowned; and whether the 
French governor was lost on the Saguenay or, 
massacred in Paris, as is advanced, Atropos 
alone knows. History, whimsical at the best, 
loses all sense of proportion in naming the town 



MARIA CHAPDELAINE OF PERIBONKA 161 

for Eoberval while ignoring de Quen, whose labors 
were so much more zealous than the erratic gov- 
ernor's. 

Lake St. John is now about thirty miles wide 
and nearly circular. In a damper age it probably 
covered all the bottom-lands between the distant 
mountain ranges. These rose before us in ter- 
races of windy ultramarine to the south, near the 
lake, and hovered on the horizons of north and 
east like wordless invitations to hardy men. With 
surprising celerity our nimble boat splashed into 
the gromng waves, and the little town at our 
rear looked ever less an asylum, ever more an 
ornament. Pointe Bleue, where the Hudson's 
Bay Co. had a post, lying white and green along 
the water, fell behind us on the west, and I could 
see where the Ashuapmouchouan (which is not 
an Indian alphabet, but a river) entered. Further 
to the northwest there was a flat blueness, vacant 
of shore, where the Mistassini came in. We were 
steering a little east of north for the Peribonka 
Eiver. Was there ever such a lake? Forty 
named rivers, unite to make this inland reservoir, 
and some of those that actually enter (of which 
there are eighteen) are a mile wide at the mouth. 
Three of these are from 300 to 400 miles long, 
huge serpents of water issuing from a land that 
to-day is unsettled, unsurveyed, and unexplored, 
except as Indians canoeing on fixed routes can 



162 THE LAURENTIANS 

be said to be explorers. New York State would 
not be described as explored, if all that was 
known of it had been learned by canoeing on the 
Hudson from Albany to the mouth, or by sitting 
in a train from Troy to Buffalo. 

Phil and I sat in the lee of the cabin and 
laughed at the gentle tomfooleries with which 
the Gallic blood proclaimed its light-heartedness. 
Those young men and girls, older men and wives, 
and a few veterans of the years, built up for them- 
selves a red-letter day out of the most evanescent 
materials, out of chatter and titters and ginger- 
beer. What a facility they had for amusement, 
and what an incapability of sitting still ! Neither 
Phil nor I are rheumatic, but it would have hurt us 
to move as incessantly as did those sons and 
daughters of the moment. Leaves in a gale, 
Easter chickies in a shop-window, squirrels in a 
progressive cage ! 

But presently a change. The wind rose. The 
lake became more and more deJScient in solidity. 
It became increasingly hard for some of them to 
hide their troubles under an air of ease. Lake 
St. John is as facile as the French, and what her 
morning promises her noon does not always pre- 
sent. 

Just as the mirth began to ebb and as all the 
different shades and qualities of abdominal gloom 
started to appear we ran behind a sandy point. 



MARIA CHAPDELAINE OF PERIBONKA 163 

and all the vivacity broke forth again. This was 
pleasant. The French-Canadian has no emer- 
gency ration of resolution beneath his belt; and 
where the Anglo-Saxon curses but goes on, he, 
often wisely, stops. And he hates the water. I 
have seen tears standing in his eye when Lake 
St. John rose and roared, when the Briton would 
have laughed in an outdoor ecstasy. And I have 
seen him laugh, with sweat rolling into his eyes, 
and black flies sucking in desperation at every 
pore, with a canoe on his head and a stubborn 
hill in front, when I could have sat down and 
wept for vexation of spirit. But nobody who 
remembers Verdun can ever criticize the French. 
^ All this while, the name Peribonka had been 
groping in the closets and drawers of my memory 
for a misplaced association. Suddenly this now 
came to light: Peribonka, Louis Hemon, Maria 
Chapdelaine; of course! I had the thing in my 
pocket, a yellow-backed romance which the author 
called **Recit du Canada FrauQais." 

''What 's the book?" asked Phil. 

''Attendez, mon fils," I said, and read; ''Louis 
Hemon was born at Brest on October 12, 1880. 
He died at Chapleau (Province of Ontario, Cana- 
da), on July 8, 1913, a victim of a railroad ac- 
cident. ' ' 

"What of it?" snorted Phil. "Didn't the 
family get damages?" 



164. THE LAURENTIANS 

''He lived," I continued, ''in Canada eighteen 
months in 1912 and 1913, spending entire months 
on farms working in the fields with the habitants 
in order to study them more closely." 

"Or waiting for tractor parts," said Phil. 
"Imagine passing entire months on these farms! 
Look at this river, will you?" 

"One sentence more," I said, "Louis Hemon 
lived in the vicinity of Lake St. John, at Roberval 
at Saint-Gedeon and particularly at Peribonka. 
It was in these long visits, that he composed 
'Maria Chapdelaine'." 

"After that one can understand the railroad 
accident," said Phil sardonically. "How 's the 
book?" 

"Unread," I had to confess, and we looked 
into it, page 1, Chapter I: 

" 'Ite, missa est.' La porte de I'eglise de Peribonka 
s'ouvrit et les hommes commencerent a sortir." 

"Well, I see that we 're in for running up and 
taking a look at that church," said Phil, good- 
naturedly complying with my unspoken intention. 

Phil was just that sort, guessing what you 'd 
like, and then gracefully bringing it about in the 
manner of those angels who used to descend for 
one's personal relief, but who have since been 
killed by an overdose of logic. We decided on 
Peribonka. 



MARIA CHAPDELAINE OF PERIBONKA 165 

The picnic intended to debouch on a point a 
mile below the village ; but the captain consented 
to run us up the river, which was wide and swift 
and sandy. 

The most beautiful adventures are those which 
bud from Uttle and slowly open out to more until 
an unexpected flower of pleasure lifts you above 
the common day. If the habit of your heart 
is wise you will enjoy them as they come. All the 
transitions of our day had seemed to Phil and me 
very gradual ; from violent breakfast to the porch, 
from porch to party, to Peribonka, to the scene of 
Maria Chap delaine's church-goings. But now 
the crescendo began. A priest was coming down 
the wooden steps of the edifice, and I ventured a 
question about the heroine. 

''Why don't you ask Madam Bedard? She 
is Maria Chapdelaine." 

''Maria Chapdelaine real?" I gasped. ''And 
living?" 

The father smiled. "Not only living, but liv- 
ing there, Monsieur," and he pointed along the 
little street which bordered the broad river. 
" "Let 's beard the heroine in her den," said 
Phil. ' ' She '11 probably need to be bearded, any- 
way; I '11 wager her a hag of ninety, with one 
tooth and a crutch." 

Phil lost. The door was opened to us by a 
nearing-middle-age woman still habited in her 



166 THE LAURENTIANS 

Sunday-go-to-mass clothes, whose tendency was 
toward portliness, but elegantly, and whose com- 
plexion still recalled the rose. As Frangois 
Paradis, the hero of the romance, said to the 
father, "Votre fille, c'est different; elle a change; 
mais je 1' aurais bien reconnue tout de suite." 
So we easily knew that here was she whom we 
sought, but Philip said, "Bonjour, Madame, is 
Mademoiselle Maria Chapdelaine in?" 

Imagine the pleasure of knocking at the door of 
the Virginian's ranch home and asking if Molly 
Stark was in ! 

But Madame Bedard was not complimented. 
She said, ''This is Monsieur Samuel Bedard 's 
house." 

''Samuel Chapdelaine, Samuel Bedard, peculiar 
coincidence," thought I, and said, "La meme 
chose, Madame?" 

Still madame did not smile and probably was 
saved from perjury by the opportune appearance 
of Monsieur Bedard himself, a man nearing fifty, 
I suppose, but strong, if rather slight, and with 
the address and manner of a transplanted cour- 
tier. iSamuel Bedard is the big man of Peribonka, 
that is, of the whole north country thereabouts. 

"What do the gentlemen want, Maria?" 

At the give-away Maria turned with an exquisite 
shrug and allowed him the doorway ; we told him 
what we wanted. 



MARIA CHAPDELAINE OF PERIBONKA 167 

*'Yes," he said, after we had been not only- 
invited in but to dinner — and who could refuse 
to dine with the characters of romance? ''Yes, 
Louis Hemon spent the winter with us, a silent 
man, and frail. I don't think our winter agreed 
with him. He said that he was after health and 
wished to work in the fields. The work in the 
bush was too hard for him, so he worked with 
me here, and in the evenings wrote. We did 
not know that he was writing about us, until one 
day after he had gone there cam.e three copies of 
the book. I 'm afraid they 've all been taken. 
People will take things, you know." 

''Yes, they '11 take another man's time if they 
can 't lay hands on his pocket-book, ' ' I said, think- 
ing fiercely of the tea-and-time consumers' leagues 
I knew, "and I am sure you have affairs right 
now. Monsieur," 

"Mais non. Monsieur." We might have been 
in Paris (instead of on the very verge of no- 
where), discussing the art of life. 

"Why does she hate to admit it?" asked Phil, 
when we had got back to the subject. "I should 
think she 'd be proud of being in a novel; T 
would. ' ' 

"Well," began Monsieur Bedard cautiously, 
"there is nothing in the book that she 's ashamed 
of. It is a very nice book. But one does n't like 
one's life paraded before the curious, does one?" 



168 THE LAURENTIANS 

**It is a worthy curiosity, Monsieur, isn't it, 
this desire to know how you are living in this 
Northland, to learn what one like yourself is 
thinking, and how your thoughts differ from the 
thoughts of city people? I shall read of your 
vie implacable with intense interest after seeing 
that it can breed gentlemen like yourself." 

"I do not care myself," he said smiling, ''but 
she does." His thumb pointed to the kitchen, 
whence blew savory smells mingling with strains 
of an old song, "Bonhomme, bonhomme, que sais- 
tu done faire?" in a most delicious minor. 

*'Her heart is not exactly broken, anyway," 
said Phil. 

"Oh, she can cook still!" laughed Monsieur 
Bedard. 

We were called to dinner. 

I wish that I knew whether the French-Cana- 
dian of the farther places objects to being called 
"habitant." I have been told he does. He 
of course smilingly refutes it, though I notice that 
he refers to his brother as fennier or cultivateur. 
A French-Canadian will never hurt your feelings 
to your face, never say what he thinks you will 
not like to hear. This is sometimes more madden- 
ing than the truth, for if you ask him whether 
the train has gone, whether some road is 
practicable, whether the hotel is good, he will 
reply to please, at whatever hazard to the 



MARIA CHAPDELAINE OF PERIBONKA 169 

truth. I often asked whether I did right in think- 
ing of some rural friend as ** habitant," for I ad- 
mire the term; and no one, at least, challenged 
me to a duel. So here I would fain refer to 
Monsieur Bedard as the ideal habitant, as well 
as ideal host. 
^^ The ideal habitant, as I was so often to find 
him in habitant-land from Roberval to Tadoussac, 
comes nearer to living in the atmosphere of 
the Twenty-third Psalm than any man on our 
planet. His cup runneth over, and he knows it. 
The priest is his shepherd, and he knows that the 
church will never let him want. But this does 
not plunge him into vicious idleness, rather into 
a wealth of tranquillity. He has cows in his 
pasture, cream on his table, and twins in the 
cradle. Although there is a piano, and a well- 
tuned piano, in the parlor and a Ford in the 
stable, he goes into the bush of a winter. His 
pipe is his panacea. His wife is his personal 
property, on which is declared the dividend of 
one (or two) offspring per annum. He is led by 
temperament and religion beside the still waters ; 
and goodness, if not mercy, accompanies him. 
What the Puritan is to the tradition of America, 
so will the habitant be, centuries from now, in Ca- 
nadian annals. The time is coming, perhaps, 
when he will be civilized into the universal medi- 
ocrity. But that time has not reached its palsy- 



170 THE LAURENTIANS 

ing fingers into the cracks and crevices of 
furthermost habitant-land. And I am happy to 
have known him, lord of his rugged manor ; happy 
to have been joint-enjoyer of the pleasures of the 
land; and happiest to have made his acquaint- 
ance in the persuasive person of Monsieur 
Bedard. 

■^ Of course, as lords, we ate first ; and, as guests, 
in the dining-room. There were deer and caribou 
heads about the room, and the inevitable pickle- 
jar and blue-and-gold china on the table. But 
the food was different; so different from the 
hard-pan of Roberval, or the more refined hash 
of other eating-houses. Phil enjoyed himself in 
a sort of succulent frenzy, taking time, however, 
to present Madame Maria with a compliment ^vhen 
each new delicacy disclosed occasion. To hear 
some people criticize the habitants you would sup- 
pose that they had retained of their French noth- 
ing except the vices; but if Brittany, or Paris 
or Lorraine, can furnish bread more palatable, 
veal better done, or pudding au riz avec confiture 
of wild strawberry from the near-by glens, they 
should advertise. After doing considerable vio- 
lence to the meal, we smoked and talked, until 
Madame, aided by eleven visiting cousins, had 
put the kitchen in order and joined us. May 
the fumes of the infernal pit choke a body who 
is so comfortable and does not appreciate it! 



MARIA CHAPDELAINE OF PERIBONKA 171 

Later Monsieur Bedard had to leave; the pic- 
nickers at the point had sent up for him. Nothing, 
or no event in Peribonka, at least, was com- 
plete without his presence. Phil and I stayed a 
while longer, and Madame Maria told us of her 
husband's life, of how he had earned needed 
money by staging people across Lake St. John 
all one winter, in the teeth of blizzards and fear- 
ful temperatures. She told of le pays austere 
to the north, told of the life in her former home ; 
and finally, prodded by Phil's ingratiating per- 
sistence, told us of Hemon and how true his 
romance was. The picture she made, rosy, smil- 
ing, planting her elbows on the counter of their 
little store, when she was not using her hands to 
enforce a point, was memorable, typical. Well- 
nourished, with a genuineness of color and vivac- 
ity that became beauty, yet strong, able to endure 
— no wonder Hemon was inspired to write the 
romance of habitant-land. 

That is what ''Maria Chapdelaine" is — the first, 
and quite possibly the best-to-be, of such tales 
embodying the evasive simplicities of the colon 
valeureux. The progress of the story employs 
no literary inventions to stimulate its pace, which 
is one with the calendar. Maria is introduced 
to us leaving the church, her one annual great 
pleasure, in order to drive back through the half- 
burnt bush and across dangerous ice to her 



172 THE LAURENTIANS 

father 's frontier farm for another year of labori- 
ous isolation. A fine-looking, true-hearted trap- 
per and guide, Frangois Paradis, sees her and 
tliey mutually love. He attempts a long journey 
to see her at Christmas and is slain by winter. 
Maria pledges to the Virgin a thousand Aves, 
which nearly break the reader's heart, so poignant 
do they grow as he knows the sickening truth in 
store for her. Another lover breaks the news 
to Maria of Frangois' s death — a hopeless lover, 
this Eutrope Gagnon. Life goes on demanding 
sacrifice and struggle. Maria's mother dies, and 
the reader, who is of the family, suffers all the 
suspense of awaiting the doctor, the cure, who 
tells her that it is her duty to marry. A third 
beau, this one from the States, offers his hand 
and comparative wealth, and Maria wavers. But 
not for long. The tradition grips her; she sticks 
by the land, and accepts the hopeless Gagnon. 

Such is the story, the outline of which conveys 
Hemon about as adequately as if one were to say 
of Romeo and Juliet that they were a nice couple 
who loved and lost. The outline shows the grim 
externals of life in Peribonka. The novel itself, 
by a simple sincerity as naive as Bunyan, makes 
the reader taste and smell and hear the things 
by which the men and women of that north country 
live. After one lays down the book the story 
is not over. They go living on. One knows that 



MARIA CHAPDELAINE OF PERIBONKA 173 

Maria is up there, creating happiness for her 
Eld rope out of the meager resources. One senses 
the imperishable strength of people with their 
feet in the soil. One feels the peace of the spring 
rain that is to unfetter the land, and the resigna- 
tion that greets the coming again of winter. 

While the real Maria was talking to us, I wished 
a thousand times that I had read the book. But 
later I was glad that I had seen the veritable 
heroine first, for the memory of her motherly 
features, her alternating gentleness and scorn, 
ire and humor, her gestures and rapid speech, 
added to rather than displaced the younger woman 
whom Hemon has given to the world. What a 
unique opportunity to come upon a living sequel 
and find no cleft, no change to insipidity! How 
often since when turning over the pages I have 
said to myself, "Yes, how true," or ''I remember 
that," and in these singing pages how often the 
unsayable gets said! 

Recently have appeared two translations, from 
which the "Canadian Bookman" has given quota- 
tions. I am going to include a paragraph of 
Hemon where Frangois, Maria's beloved, con- 
fesses to a sin of his, and then show how Sir 
Andrew Macphail and Mr. W. H. Blake transfer 
the sense of it from one language to another. 

Et c'est vrai aussi que je sacrais un peu. A vivre 
tout le temps avec des hommes rough dans le bois ou 



174 THE LAURENTIANS 

sur les rivieres, on s' accoutume a ga. II y a eu un 
temps que je sacrais pas mal, et M. le cure Tremblay 
m' a dispute une fois parce que j' avais dit devant lui 
que je n' avais pas peur du diable. Mais c' est fini, 
Maria. Je vais travailler tout 1' ete a deux piastres 
et demie par jour et je mettrai de 1' argent de cote, 
certain. Et a 1' automne je suis sur de trouver une 
job comme foreman dans un chantier, avec de grosses 
gages. Au printemps prochain, j' aurai plus de cinq 
cents piastres de sauvees, claires, et je reviendrai. 

Sir Andrew translates: — 

And it is also true that I swore a bit. Living all 
tbe time with rough men in the woods or on the rivers, 
— that is the custom. There was a time when I used 
to swear pretty bad, and cure Tremblay once rebuked 
me for having said before him that I was not afraid 
of the devil. But that is over, Maria. I am going to 
work all summer at two dollars and a half a day. And 
I will surely put the money aside. And in the fall I 
am certain to find a job as foreman in a shanty with 
high wages. Next spring I will have more than five 
hundred dollars clear savings, and I will come back. 

And Mr. Blake translates: — 

And it is also true that I used to swear. When one 
lives all the time with rough men in the woods or on 
the rivers one gets the habit. Once I swore a good 
deal, and the cure, Mr. Tremblay, took me to task be- 
cause I said before him that I was n 't afraid of the 
devil. But there is an end of that too, Maria. All 
the summer I am to be working for two dollars and a 
half a day and you may be sure I shall save money. 
And in the autumn there will be no trouble finding a 



MARIA CHAPDELAINE OF PERIBONKA 175 

job as foreman in a shanty Mntli big wages. Next 
spring I shall have more than five hundred dollars 
saved, clear, and I shall come back. 

Simple and unadorned as Hemon's French is, 
it is still as impossible to carry over the exact 
repercussion of his syllables as it is to transpose 
some air conceived for strings to the piano and 
hope to render all there was before. He is indeed 
wise who reads it first in French for the very 
homeliness of the kitchen, the sturdy humbleness 
of forest fortitude, the sigh of the wind, and whis- 
per of the snow — all these make a somber music 
in the French which can be caught in no trans- 
lation. 

If it be wise to read the book in French, it is 
still wiser to read it on the shores of Lake St. 
John. Then go to Peribonka, where Hemon seems 
to live. So vividly has he expressed the sermon 
of the soil, so exactly caught the scene, so superbly 
brought his people into being, and so profoundly 
wrought his elements into art that he will be this 
people's Homer, an immortal. He knew what 
they think: 

Nous sommes venus, il y a trois cents ans, et nous som- 
mes restes. . . . Nous avions apporte d' outre-mer 
nos prieres et nos chansons : elles sont toujours les 
memes. Nous avions apporte dans nos poitrines le 
coeur des hommes de notre pays, vaillant et vif, aussi 
prompt a la pitie qu' au rire, le coeur le plus humain 



176 THE LAURENTIANS 

de tous les coeurs humains: il n' a pas change. Nous 
avons marque un plan de continent nouveau, de Gaspe 
a Montreal, de Saint- Jean d' Iberville a 1' Ungava, en 
disant : Ici toutes les choses que nous avons apportees 
avec nous, notre culte, notre langue, nos vertus, et jusqu' 
a nos faiblesses deviennent des choses sacrees, intangible 
et qui devront demeurer jusqu ' a la fin. Autour de nous 
des etrangers sont venus, qu' il nous plait d' appeler 
des barbares; ils ont pris presque tout le pouvoir; ils 
ont acquis presque tout 1' argent; mais au pays de 
Quebec rien n' a change. Rien ne changera, parce que 
nous sommes un temoignage. De nous-memes et de 
nos destinee nous n' avons compris clairement que ce 
devoir-la : persister ; nous maintenir. Et nous nous 
sommes maintenus, peut-etre afin que dans plusieurs 
siecles encore le monde se tourne vers nous et dise: 
Ces gens sont d' une race qui ne sait pas mourir ... 
nous sommes un temoignage. C est pourquoi il faut 
rester dans la province ou nos peres sont restes, et 
vivre comme ils sont vecu, pour obeir au commande- 
ment inexprime qui s' est forme dans leurs coeurs, qui 
a passe dans les notres et que nous devrons transmettre 
a notre tour a de nombreux enfants: Au pays de 
Quebec rien ne doit mourir et rien ne doit changer. 



CHAPTER XI 

HOW TO WAIT IN ROBEHVAL 

THERE are two species of people in the 
North — natives and strangers. Natives are 
people who answer questions, and strangers are 
those who believe what the natives say. 

It took me a long while to naturalize myself, 
that is, to get over my state of credulity. If a 
hotel-man said that the night train left at 6 p. m., 
I believed him; and if somebody told me that it 
was so many miles to some place else, I believed 
him. I was always wrong. 

I was most wrong about my flying permit, which 
was to have been sent me ''at once." I had erro- 
neously inferred that it would come to hand within 
a week, and still more erroneously that a week in 
Roberval would seem only seven days long. For 
some reason or other I still have a prejudice 
against hearing a village clock strike. It is too 
freshly reminiscent. 

Phil's fix was less maddening. He was at least 
being paid for squandering his mortal hours 
so exclusively on Roberval. I wasn't. Besides, 

177 



178 THE LAURENTIANS 

every morning I heard the tuning up of the flying- 
boat, saw it rise and flatten itself against the sky 
like a wild goose, and disappear into the land of 
my imagination. At evening I saw it return. 
For an official word I could have been returning 
with it. The dews of disappointment settled on 
my spirit, and other sights, other sounds, other 
places, Bagdad itself, would have seemed insipid 
to me. This is how a mule feels, I suppose, when 
it puts its ears back. Hereafter I shall always 
see that mules get what they crave. 

Now, as the clay in me grows more malleable 
to the spirit I am more convinced of two things: 
that man sooner or later plucks the apple of his 
desire, so the desire be steadfast ; and that he had 
better let the harvest-moment wait upon the Lord. 
I got my flights, and felicitous they were beyond 
expectation; but the intervening interval was of 
even more moment to me, as far as comprehension 
of the riches of the north goes, than a lifetime in 
the air. One cannot pick figs from thistles, but 
you can sometimes pick a friend from thorny sur- 
roundings. In Roberval I was to resuscitate my 
college days, find kindred spirits, and penetrate 
the veil of northern character, to enrich my life, 
when all the while I thought myself the dupe of 
time and a handful of honorable ministers. 

At first I believe the greatest sorrow to Phil 
and me was that a man can't need to shave three 



HOW TO WAIT IN ROBERVAL 179 

times a day. For, after our morning round — I 
with him to the freight station to see if there were 
a telegram, he with me to the post-office to seek 
my permit — after that we had to imagine what 
we should do ; for events in Roberval did not occur 
spontaneously. And the barber-shop is the easi- 
est thing to imagine, even though the barber there 
be quite unimaginable. 

The world was now beautiful with spring's 
maturity. The rich fields that sloped upward 
to the southern horizon grew wavy with grass that 
was mainly clover, and full of four-leaves at that. 
Phil and I amused ourselves amassing them. 
One afternoon we got nearly twenty. 

''Gosh," he exclaimed, ''these ought to insure 
us freight and flights and fortune for the rest of 
our days." 

Mine began the next morning. Colonel B. A. 
Scott arrived. 

Colonel Scott, it seemed, was a combination of 
genius loci and pater-familias of Roberval. His 
very coming set the town agog. For untold suc- 
cessions of years he had been mayor of the place, 
when probably the only English-speaking man in 
town, and certainly the only Protestant ; and to 
walk along the street with him was to take part 
in a sort of processional. 

In those days that phantom of sudden wealth, 
masquerading in the general guise of development, 



180 THE LAURENTIANS 

fluttered for a while over the great basin of St. 
John. There had been a hotel. There had been 
world-famous fishing for ouananiche in la Grande 
Decharge. Mr. Beemer's hostelry on one of the 
islands near the lake's eastern shore was visited 
by celebrated anglers from every land. The for- 
ests to the north were being laid out into pulp- 
wood limits. There were no anxieties as to the 
future. Koberval would be a center, a great name, 
a thrill to the world. Colonel Scott was mayor. 

But the vultures were already congregating. 
The hotel burned down. The ouananiche fishing 
was played out. Mr. Beemer closed his hostelry. 
The phantom of wealth proved will-o'-the-wisp 
and fluttered otherwhere. Colonel Scott re- 
signed. Roberval came near being re-absorbed 
into eternal nothing. 

There was only one ray of light. Colonel Scott 
occasionally came back, and with him plans for 
a new development, a harnessing of the rapids of 
la Grande Decharge, an immensely greater phan- 
tom of hugely greater wealth. Roberval might 
be flooded out of existence by the plans ; but that 
could be got around. Wealth! Wealth! 

Monsieur Albert Naud, Colonel Scott's secre- 
tary, who did his able best to make my stay in 
Roberval interesting and informed, told me this. 
No one can induce me to think that the French- 
Canadian does not make a fair business man, for 



HOW TO WAIT IN ROBERVAL 181 

I have known Monsienr Naud .... He was 
snugly built, always trim in appearance, and 
lived ^vith. liis wife and eight children in a cozy 
house. From a tiny office he managed the affairs 
of this great enterprise with implacable assi- 
duity. Nobody coul-d give me information of the 
country-side with anj^thing approaching Mon- 
sieur Naud's accuracy. Thanks to his care I 
was to meet the two men of all men in the world 
who could guide me intelligently in the Isle d' 
Alma country; and thanks to his thoughtfuiness 
Colonel Scott was apprised of my presence in the 
world, and I was invited on a trip to the mouth 
of la Grande Decharge, where the colonel had 
some fishing waters. I advise strangers visit- 
ing Eoberval, and desiring verification of any 
so-called information they have received, to hunt 
up Monsieur Naud. They will find a gentleman 
and a student of their wants. 

Sometimes the virtue of a day that has been 
spent indoors seems staled. That day would have 
surely been lost had it been spent in the barber 
chairs of Roberval. The colonel and a friend 
had chartered Cimon Simon and his tug and we 
were off early and out upon the lake, for which 
I had now got an affection. The scene was com- 
posed of three inmiensities : the expanse of lake, 
the wide blue coronal of mountains, and a pro- 
found transparency of sky. Among these our 
little vessel labored, like a water-bug crossing 



182 THE LAURENTIANS 

the Mediterranean. If the sky was empty, exist- 
ence seemed no longer so. 

Neither was the tug. Inside, the colonel and 
his friend gloated over ambiguous lumps of bag- 
gage; while on the top rested four Indians and 
two canoes. It was my first glimpse of the Mon- 
tagnais. 

But that morning I was too contented to invent 
French questions. I lay out in the sun and 
looked. What liberty! 

Lake St. John can give one transcendental 
thoughts, it lies so open to the day in its broad 
cup. From its midst you see the world, that has 
been so much with you, very faintly. Yet you 
are conscious of those kindly enclosing ranges, 
and are not so handed over to the bare infinities 
as you are in open ocean. The gravity of great 
waters and the melancholy of great woods are 
there in the hint, but not overwhelmingly. The 
friendly gods are not wanting. 

I lay in the sun and stared into the North. 
Eange behind range, low and soon lost in the blue 
veil of distance, made pictures for me, pictures 
that were concluded by the inner eye when my 
others failed. There, I thought, would I take In- 
dian guide and go, and be for a while guest of 
that magnificent isolation. Would that be liberty! 
I wondered, and looked at the faces of the Indians, 
life-dwellers in it. Who enjoyed the real free- 



HOW TO WAIT IN ROBERVAL 183 

dom? I, who despised the puerilities of civiliza- 
tion, but for whom civilization had built up, in the 
main, most of that which made life worthy of 
esteem*? Or they, constrained by nothing except 
nature and the most elemental needs, who lived 
by their seven senses and the simple affections? 

As we neared the eastern shore we chugged 
around lonely islands rendered lonelier by a sense 
of their former habitation, and came into a shal- 
low bay, on the shores of which stood teams, one 
for the canoes, one for the luggage, one for the 
colonel. When one counts up the tugs and teams, 
vessels and vassals, it requires to lead the simple 
life for a week-end, it almost seems as if existence 
in naive old New York were artless in comparison. 

The skilful speed with which the quartet of 
guides lowered the canoes, transferred the duffle, 
and, standing up in the sterns of this craft, wafted 
their loads ashore had never been suggested in 
their somnolence atop the tug. There is a feline 
suggestion about the Indian. 

The caravan on the yellow sands made a dusky 
pageant, as we turned away, that stored one more 
picture in my summer's gallery. And now was 
to be added another of the utmost magnificence. 
While we had been gaging our way amid the 
islands by the most careful piloting, for shoals 
are many and a shipwreck would be tedious there, 
Lake St. John, the lake of many moods, had de- 



184. THE LAURENTIANS 

cided to show me, of her versatility, the mighti- 
est of her summer manifestations. On the lazy 
wind great cmnulus clouds had been drifting at 
their ease all morning ; now they were marshaled, 
but not in the crowded manner of a land thunder- 
storm, rather as immense blue panels all around 
the lake. Out of these vast shields of steely blue, 
gray draperies of rain trailed away ; and from the 
firmamental silence came drum-notes and the 
flicker of light on averted surfaces. More than 
ever now were we tiny, a wild duck on a twilight 
gulf, a leaf on a mill-pool. • But there was no 
presage of harm in the gathered forces. It 
seemed to me almost like a vision, as if those ti- 
tan-headed clouds, journeying in slow procession 
from the lake-lands of Athabasca and the Rainy 
Eiver country toward the Labrador, epitomized 
the beauty, the might, the tameless splendor of 
the North. Even in summer her savageness was 
barely hidden by these misty draperies. Staged 
from low horizons to towering zenith, paled by 
the still shining sun almost to invisibility, and 
nearly mute despite their windy hearts, those 
ghostly giants marched to the music of drums un- 
heard, stately as if it were a bridal of the gods. 
For an hour I lay there watching the vast circle 
of the sky in a sort of elemental dream, until, like 
the northern lights, they withdrew with a divine 
decorum into the abiding-place of the invisible. 



HOW TO WAIT IN ROBERVAL 185 

Only then, as they were leaving, did a wind hit 
the waters, coming, I suppose, from the last swish 
of their garments. In five minutes Lake St. John 
was creamy with curling waves, in ten ridged in 
noisy tumult, in twenty almost calm again. But 
I had seen. I believed then what Cimon Simon 
had said about the dangers of the lake, and under- 
stood a little of the fears those on its borders own 
to. 

In this connection Phil had sai-d to me, as we 
stood looking at the totally unoccupied waters of 
the lake one afternoon: "Can you imagine that 
in the States ? A perfectly good lake, a perfectly 
good afternoon, and young fellows with their per- 
fectly gox)d girls — at least we hope so — on the 
beach? Why, there 'd be fifty boats out there, 
and a hundred more where you couldn't see 'em. 
Is n't that so? Well, why is it these Frenchmen 
don't utilize their opportunities?" 

That afternoon Phil and I utilized our oppor- 
tunities, , which were our legs, in a (to him) ex- 
travagant manner, by walking the six miles out to 
Val Jalbert, where the falls of the Ouiatchouan 
used to fling themselves at one in a magnifi'cent 
cataract, nearly 250 feet high. The water still 
churns itself to foam, but the beauty of the lily 
has been gilded by a pulp-mill. The juxtaposi- 
tion is perfect. 

Of course there can be no debate as to whether 



186 THE LAURENTIANS 

one should have meat or melody in this world. 
Man cannot live, much less light his houses, by 
beauty alone. His ration must include some 
bread. But beauty is a yeast that leavens well. 
If the Ouiatchouan is spoiled so that the residents 
of Roberval can read Plato at night, that is one 
thing. Plato at least will teach them to economize 
on the amount of ugliness produced. I expect 
that the disfigurement of this splendid fall was 
defensible. All I ask is that the' Robervalian 
emit a sigh when he sees what he has done, and 
that they don't use all the pulp produced by 
beauty crucified to make that sewage of the press 
called the Sunday supplement. 

Unquestionably the most impressive part now 
is the pile of pulp-logs at its base, whose peak 
reaches above the falls. The logs are sawed 
above the falls, floated down to a boom, guided 
down a slip-way and heaped up. Another un- 
questionable impression is the view from the up- 
per level. The surrounding country spreads like 
a fan before one, the fences of the much-fenced 
land acting as the fan-sticks, and the features of 
the scene varying from plot to plot like an Ori- 
ental fantasy. 

Phil was here suddenly changed from apathy 
to a renewal of his youth and kid-hood by the sight 
of a faint trail on a perpendicular cli:ff near-by. 

''Let's go up," he urged. 



HOW TO WAIT IN ROBERVAL 187 

** Neither of my parents was a goat," I objected. 

*'01i, come on!" 

''And I hate to begin the line," I continued. 

*'It 's nothing much." 

''Quite right; nothing at all — if you lose your 
hold." 

"Well, I haven't walked a hundred miles out 
here for nothing. I '11 show you how easy it is. 
See there along that ledge. Will you follow?" 

"No," I said, "if I 've got to go," and the be- 
ginning did look possible, "I speak to be killed 
first." 

It really wasn't bad, even when the insignifi- 
cant ledge swung out over a gulf, three hundred 
feet to the bottom; though that distance, one 
might add, doesn't make the rocks look soft. 
From the top we had a prospect over the north, 
already swathed in sunset hues, that suggested 
wigwam fires in Indian-land. 

"Not a bad way to kill time, eh?" said Phil, 
cheerily. 

"But it 's a little too obvious way to get rid 
of me," said I, looking down along the horrible 
crevices by which we had mounted, where not even 
conscientious brambles could take root. Long 
skinny fellows like Phil, never make allowance 
for their india-rubber reach. I talked entertain- 
ingly to him on other subjects until I judged it 
was too dark for even angels to risk a descent and 
then led him home another way. 



CHAPTER XII 

THE BEACH LIFE OF POINTE BLEUE 

WAITING now became a more absorbing 
process the more we did of it. At first 
each additional burden of time which dawn 
brought to us on her golden platters seemed re- 
pulsive and unswallowable. But as we developed 
a technique of idleness we were able to enjoy each 
flagging hour as if it were charged with the stim- 
ulation of a circus. We sat on the porch of the 
Chateau, listening to the overtones of sloth until 
their sluggish sweetness nigh rendered us unfit 
for all future activity. 

'^Demain, peut-etre," which was the freight- 
man's smiling motto when Phil made his morning 
inquiry, became ours. 

"Shall we go fishing?" 

'^Demain, peut-etre," cooed Phil, torpid with 
content. 

The iron of Roberval had entered into our souls, 
steeling us against exertion. 

Heaven, who alone knows or understands what 
goes on in Roberval, probably has our calendar 

188 



BEACH LIFE OF POINTE BLEUE 189 

jotted down somewhere to be answered for on the 
day of reckoning. Heaven certainly alone knows 
what the upshot would have been had not the 
tractor parts arrived. 

Arrive they did. One morning, when our hair 
was almost long enough to cut again, Phil ran in, 
brushing the balmy dream from his forehead, say- 
ing excitedly: ''They 've come, man, they Ve 
come. Gosh! I 'm sorry." An hour later the 
yawning day had swallowed him up, and I was 
left alone exanimate and blue, with Roberval on 
my hands. tempera ! 

It is astounding (to me) how resilient the spirit 
is. Put it in a really critical position, touch the 
fuse of desperation with the match of humor, or 
courage, or elation, and you soar. While I had 
company, the situation was not critical. Now, 
since all my instincts were anti-torpescent, it was. 
I tapped lightly three times on my sleeping initi- 
ative, and drew my sword. I would do something, 
the very first thing I thought of : fishing. In half 
,an hour I was off up the Ouiatchouananische, a 
stream not quite so full of trout as it is of letters. 
But that afternoon I took in the slack of my self- 
respect, an article that soon grows limp with 
loafing. And on the way back I conceived the 
idea of renting a bicycle and riding out the few 
miles of lake-shore road to Pointe Bleue. 

Did you ever set yourself a stint that didn't 



190 THE LAURENTIANS 

matter, and on being balked in it, vow the com- 
pletion of the enterprise? Well, that is what 
happened to my awakened donkey-like desire. 
Eoberval didn't rent bicycles. I left few houses 
unentered. Either the bicycle owners could not 
comprehend my motive in wishing to ride forth, 
or else really did desire to put their machines 
to all the immediate uses, as alleged. Certainly 
I didn't rent one. But an hour before dusk a 
Samaritan in a hardware-store, whose name I 
would write in grateful letters of gold had I 
thought to ask it, lent me his, refusing money, 
itself an uncommon act among his saving race, 
and I wound westward slowly o'er the lea, eman- 
cipated. 

Some day, I regret to predict, the circuit of St. 
John will be one of the world-famous drives on 
our picturesque planet. The small segment which 
conducted me along cliffs of gray Archaean rock 
that raised one high above the lake was an avenue 
of serenity. To the sunsetward, vermilion lights 
from late afternoon poured between the birches; 
on the lake-hand was stillness, as the earth spirits 
assembled for the vesper ceremonial. I coasted 
and came, with here and there a dun cottage in 
some trees, to the beach at Pointe Bleue, where, 
all unanticipated, another world awaited, the 
world of the woods Indian from the North. The 



BEACH LIFE OF POINTE BLEUE 191 

beach was dotted with encampments. No one had 
told me of this. 

I have seen Indians on reservations, on basket- 
selling errands, in paid-for-in-advance dances, in 
circuses, and have stared at them — possibly be- 
yond my money's worth. On this evening beach, 
I could no more have done that than I could have 
stalked up to Paderewski and asked to look at his 
hair. For these people were real, entitled to as 
much freedom from intrusion as, say, a novelist 
in his work-room. So I walked further along 
and sat down beneath a birch to get a permissible 
fill of the scene. 

It was the sunset hour. From each group of 
tents blue smoke rose in a pearly column to a 
lazy heaven. Corpulent squaws, almost as dark 
as the kettles they were tending, bended and 
stirred and threaded their steps among the chil- 
dren. Here and there a huge black mongrel 
patrolled the strand, looking for a fat morsel of 
youngster; at least I would not have trusted one 
of the brutes near edible papooses. The men, 
not yet called to supper, were gathered in a circle, 
probably gambling. Nothing else in the world 
compels such acute attention from a group of 
men. 

It was a sight belonging to any century these 
three past. For since the founding of the Hud- 



192 THE LAURENTIANS 

son's Bay Co. in 1670, the annual custom of the 
Indians has been to congregate about the post 
during the months of early summer. There they 
would trade in last winter's catch of furs at their 
most noble leisure, wipe out the debt of the win- 
ter past, smoke and play cards and scheme for 
rum, while their women visited and talked the 
gossip of the long silence over. Then in the 
Moon When the Caribou Horns Cast Their Moss 
they visit the factor once more, go in debt once 
more for guns and ammunition, traps and blan- 
kets, and begin the long trip home. Some of the 
men at whom I was looking had come from Chi- 
bougamou, some from the upper Mistassini, three 
hundred miles away. My thoughts traversed the 
wilderness. 

I had now grown accustomed to looking out on 
Lake St. John for beauty. Even during the im- 
perceptible progress of these summer days, which 
were drying out the forest mosses in their ardor, 
I had caught unseen hands arranging unfamiliar 
colors on the monotony of waters. But that 
evening the dark was being welcomed with special 
preparations. Quietly one of those meditative 
showers mounted from the far-away waters and 
swept the far mountains in a cloud of rainbow 
hues, while near-by the shiny surface of the lake 
reflected heaven's panels of pearl and frescoes of 
rose. For an instant of time the world was 



BEACH LIFE OF POINTE BLEUE 193 

dissolved in seas of exquisite color, to make the 
soul stand still and say, ''I live." If the senses 
cannot appreciate the illimitable, at least they 
acquaint the spirit of it, and tell of the world be- 
yond one's dwelling; even of the heaven beyond 
one 's world. 

But the Fates, now grown more than tractable, 
redoubled their largess. Out of the hyacinth 
west came two canoes, marching beneath that 
close, curt stroke like living things. It was 
another family arriving. The front canoe car- 
ried a young man, two children, a squaw and 
papoose in lap, one dog, and the father. The 
other was propelled by two young men, and had 
a load of duffle, a bundle of probably furs, and 
two dogs. Also two guns. Here before me 
floated the same pageant that intrigued Cham- 
plain. Now I saw the possible descendants of 
men whom Hudson, on that last wild venture, 
might have met. I was looking at the sum of the 
ages in these eastern woodlands. Barring the 
rifles and the company blankets, these dark wan- 
derers might have been cousins to those who' 
heard reports of the Norsemen's landing in the 
days before William the Conqueror. In their 
brains was stored the language of nature, in their 
souls the tradition of a thousand generations. 
They, like the primeval granite that underlay 
them, were the ancient of days, the genuine. To 



194y THE LAURENTIANS 

see those canoes beached with manifest skill, the 
dogs leap, the children clamber after them, the 
chattering greetings of squaw to squaw, the dig- 
nified old hunters meeting with grave smiles — to 
see this soft-edged picture of the dusk was, for 
some unutterable reason, to sense the lacrymw 
rerum. Progress must be by way of abandon- 
ment, was what the sight too clearly said, and at 
the moment the cost seemed vainly dear. Why 
seek wholeness further? 

Presently color had fled from the sky and the 
Indians to their encampment. After swallowing 
some fruit that prescience had supplied, I pursued 
the beach-front to the last cottage, which was 
where the Hudson's Bay Co. factor lived. Its 
porch, unroofed, commanded the whole of Lake 
St. John, now mellowed into gray, and most of 
the sky, where the early stars were beginning to 
blossom. I knocked at the door. 

I think I did not knock very boldly, and that 
was a mistake. A man on my general errand of 
intrusion for interrogation's sake must gird on 
his questions, stride up to the individual to be 
interviewed, knock him over, and with foot on 
chest, deliver himself in a few slashing sentences ; 
then make his escape while able. 

This time, so immersed had I been in the mov- 
ing loveliness about me, I had knocked on the 
lion's door, planless, and tenderly. All my for- 



BEACH LIFE OF POINTE BLEUE 195 

titude had been put away for the night. I ought 
to have been picking pansies instead of confront- 
ing lions. The lion now stuck out liis head with 
a "^^llat is it?" 

He was a Scotch lion, with a mane of steel-gray 
hair, an immense chest, eyebrows properly 
termed bushy if not hedgy, and under them, for 
all of his seventy-odd years, eyes with a cold gray 
sparkle, as if the depths of northern waters had 
caught sun. ''What is itf" he had said. 

Well, what? How could I say to a lion that T 
had just been mousing around, without his 
springing at and swallowing me. ''I 'm writing 
a book on the Laurentian country," I said, mean- 
ing to have kept the fact hidden and suddenly 
feeling as if I would hardly be visible under a 
microscope. "And," I blundered on, "and I 
was wondering how the Hudson's Bay Co. accom- 
plishes its — ," a deep breath there, "its difficult 
business," and a swallow here, "so well." 

"There 's nothing to it," growled the lion, 
though more blandly than he looked; "nothing 
to it at all." 

"Then . . ."I said. You see I did not want 
my entire relation with the Hudson's Bay Co. to 
end with that statement. Yet it was difficult to 
drag up a question sufficiently significant to in- 
terest lions from my very roiled interior. So I 
said "Then, how — " 



196 THE LAURENTIANS 

'' Nothing to it," resumed the lion; ''the In- 
dian puts down his pelt. I pay him as much as 
I can for it. I want them to come back." 

''Of course," I said hopefully. 

"Then before they go in August they buy cer- 
tain things in the company's store for which I 
trust them over the winter. ' ' 

"And they always pay?" 

"There is nothing else for them to do." I in- 
stinctively looked at the lion's paw. "But," 
he continued, "the company does not allow them 
the extravagance of large debts." A twinkle 
warmed the cold gray sparkle of his eyes. I drew 
my first breath. This was going to be fun. And 
then I put my foot in it, clean through the fun, by 
saying, "How large do they run, if I may ask?" 

"The company does not permit us to disclose 
its business," said the lion. I thought of the 
pansy-bed, and wished I were in it. I wished I 'd 
brought a letter of introduction. "Why," 
thought I, "do I progress from blunder to blun- 
der on this trip? Why can I make no happy ex- 
ceptions to my unhappy rule, and deviate just 
once into the right way of treating officials?" 
There was nothing more, really, that I felt would 
make an appropriate subject to ask about, and I 
began, lugubriously, to say farewell. 

"Won't you come in and have a smoke?" said 
the lion. 



BEACH LIFE OF POINTE BLEUE 197 

"Notliiiig," says Ainiel or Shakespeare, '^noth- 
ing is more characteristic of a man than the man- 
ner in which he behaves toward fools." And 
nothing could have been more characteristically 
Scotch than my evening with Mr. Hamilton. One 
always has to mount the stile to meet a Scot ; but 
once met, they are the salt of earth at its saltiest. 

A coolness was drifting in from the lake, so we 
had a fire. We had cigars. We had refresh- 
ment, and talk. The features of the lion faded 
into those of a genial, shrewd old man, the last 
quality of whom was age. He had come ''out" 
at the age of eighteen, and for fifty-five years had 
been storing experiences and wisdom. He told 
me of his fishings on the Saguenay and huntings 
around the lake, of his dealings with the Indians, 
and many a funny bit of gossip about his neigh- 
bors, and of his post when it had been more nearly 
a boundary post. Now there were eight com- 
panies competing for the furs. No wonder it 
takes the lionesque to hold the company's own. 

We sat in a little den, whose windows opened 
on the lake. The walls held books. It was not 
hard to conjure the graying man, sitting there 
the long winter evenings through, thinking of 
times past, and possibly the Time to come, while 
northeasters hurled the snows across the lake. 
He had pointed out a mark, higher than the house, 
which the drifts reached. Nor was it difficult to 



198 THE LAURENTIANS 

know how the H. B. C. had survived the vicis- 
situdes of 250 years, with such veteran wisdom, 
such loyalty grown gray in service, such courage 
for its own. They are dead indeed who do not 
thrill at the feats of the pathfinders, for the 
romance of fur has been as thrillful as ever was 
the romance of gold, and cleaner. That was a 
great night for me, when I sat beneath one of the 
roofs of the great company, listening to tales from 
an elder among its servants. 



CHAPTER Xin 

I GO FROM WOELD TO WORLD 

SOMETIMES in the woods it is difficult to 
remember the date. Saturdays look so much 
like Tuesdays there. But one is rarely muddled 
as to the century. Even the most capricious 
memory usually can hit it within a hundred years. 

Yet when I woke the next morning it was to 
stand on the shores of the seventeenth century 
looking forth into aboriginal time. My ears on 
going to sleep had been full of Prince Rupert and 
his merchants-adventurers. On waking they 
were filled with the rippling language of the 
Montagnais. Dressing, I could look across the 
broad bay to distant Roberval, where the people 
were still lovingly considering the 1600s; and as 
I did look, the flying-boat, that presage of our 
next era, took the air, like a sort of gasolene grif- 
fin. This was indeed a melee of the ages. 

From force of habit I put on the knickers that 
I had doffed the night before. They seemed 
related to the knee-breeches of which I had 
been hearing. Knickers — knee-breeches — ^breech- 

199 



200 THE LAURENTIANS 

clout; who will say there is not poetry in pants? 
I was certainly glad that I was not to make my en- 
trance into Indian-land in a pair of long trousers 
with a razor-like crease. But I would not have 
been stared at ; not if I had appeared in a roller- 
towel. For perfect manners I commend you to 
Pointe Bleue. 

The perfect manners are not restricted to the 
reds. Monsieur Armand Tessier, the govern- 
ment agent, smiled down my list of questions ; and 
then handed me over to Mr. Joseph Kurtness, a 
sort of resident law and order personage, who 
certainly acquitted himself as a practical dip- 
lomat. Mr. Kurtness, besides being handsome 
and a war-hero, knew English. And on him, as 
on Mr. Abyberg, I fell tooth and claw, living ques- 
tionnaire that I am, and extracted satisfaction 
from him as a child would doughnuts from the 
pantry. 

''Yes, I know that country. You travel by the 
Ouiatchouanische to La Croche and down that to 
the St. Maurice. A very good trip." 

"Yes, you can do that, too. Paddle up the 
Ashuapmouchouan, here, around the Point, be- 
yond a Portage a P Ours, to Pomonka Falls. 
Then it is a hard trip across country to Lac a 
Jim, down the outlet to the Washiemska, to the 
Mistassini, and home. A long trip." 

"Yes, I can tell you of that, though I have 



I GO FROM WORLD TO WORLD 201 

never taken it. You go up the Peribonka to Lac 
Tschatogama and — ' ' 

He was indefatigable, and, as once before in 
the office of the good Swiss, I was snowed in with 
routes. This time with a difference. I was no 
longer frantic to get somewhere. I was already 
there. Pointe Bleue, Joseph Kurtness's house it- 
self, was place enough. I stayed to lunch. One 
of the handsomest girls I have ever seen, berry- 
brown and shining-eyed and built like a hand- 
maid to Pocahontas, served it. Neither white 
poets nor art herself can ever sufficiently admire 
in rime or memorial the dignity and beauty of 
this already legendary race. Its best must have 
been a peerless people. Now, to be sure, we are 
collecting museumfuls of shards and scraps, are 
doing into pamphlets the race that stumbled and 
fell against the white steam-roller. We are do- 
ing these things with gasping zeal. But what 
puerile economy ! I wonder when will come a man 
so great that he can reverse the sequence of hu- 
man affairs for good ; can force us to put the 
horse before the cart, disarmament before the 
war, the guardian before the game's extermina- 
tion, the warden before the forest-fire, and re- 
morse before Cain's jealous blows. The New 
World certainly has been the laboratory of folly, 
in which Europe, too consistent to modify her 
past when chance was given, has plied her rules 



202 THE LAURENTIANS 

of greed. If conscience meet conscience in 
another world, the white may glow with shame, 
the red shine white. 

That morning on the beach at Pointe Bleue I 
was glad that the blood of the red race still ran 
undiluted in a few surviving. Mr. Kurtness took 
me from group to group, and we talked, the men 
and I, in our comfortable French, which might 
have seemed obscure to a Parisian, but by some 
miracle was mutually comprehended. 

One group was fixing up a bark-canoe, torn by 
the teeth of the upper Mistassini. Another was 
laying out its skins. The family which had 
arrived the night before were enlarging their 
quarters, so that their children might have room 
as well as the dogs. The beach was infested with 
dogs, and they, I should judge, with something 
else; yet the camp seemed clean enough, and the 
sleeping papooses, polished till they shone, would 
have put the pride of city mothers to the blush. 

What young men there were seemed engaged 
in a chronic card-game. The youngsters played 
clumsily at ball, or ran around with bows and 
arrows threatening sparrows with ferocious 
valor. The women were perpetually cooking 
something, washing the children, visiting one 
another 's homes, or carrying wood home from the 
shore. The current conception of feminism did 
not seem to have penetrated to the rim of Lake 



I GO FROM WORLD TO WORLD 203 

St. John, at least uot to the extent of aiding with 
the chores. 

Probably it was the exceptional sight of seeing 
an Indian yonth helping a squaw with a large log 
that impressed my first attention. Looking once 
at Matemek one looked again. There was an in- 
gratiating light in his countenance that the dusky 
circle about the gambling blanket could not show. 
He was not exceptionally tall nor strong-looking, 
but he had able shoulders, and a suspicion of a 
smile as he handled the log. Most of the male 
beach-dwellers were dour as Scot could wish. 

''Let me." I said, offering a hand. He did 
smile, showing more good teeth than there are 
in a French-Canadian town. We three got the 
log to camp. They thanked me. But I was too 
keen for gossip to get out. 

"Do you live far?" I asked. 

"Far, very far. Up the Mistassini." 

"Trapping, I suppose. Alone?" 

"With my father." 

"What do you get?" For want of other ques- 
tions, though I knew well. 

"Beaver, otter," he said, "and muskrat, mink, 
all the animals. What do you dof" 

Now let me tell you, that was a dramatic shock 
to me. You see, the dead do not ask questions. 
And, as far as interest in the other fellow goes, 
most savages you meet are dead, mere corpses of 



204. THE LAURENTIANS 

curiosity. Beauty is only skin-deep; the rest of 
us is vanity. I had got so used to interrogating 
the habitant, centered in his own vortex, and 
never regarding me as equally alive and possibly 
interesting that I did not expect reciprocation. 
So when this upstanding savage from the North 
had the courtesy to suggest that I, too, mattered, 
my egotism at once warmed to him. 

Next morning we pushed off from the beach in 
Matamek's canoe. So much, so suddenly, had 
yet happened easily, as all true adventures 
should. After a cigarette with Matamek on our 
salvaged log I had inquired more about the 
Mistassini, and began to piece together a plan in 
the planning-room of my cerebellum. Supper- 
time at the Harkness's interrupted a tale of 
Matamek's winter life of which I determined to 
hear more. That and the plan went together. I 
said to Mr. Harkness: 

''I think of all your trips the one up the Mist- 
assini will do most for me. I can see Indian 
woodmanship, can visit the great falls, and try 
for ouananiche in the pools there, and can see the 
Trappist monastery. " 

''Just now the best guides are off with Colonel 
Scott. I am sorry." 

' ' How about Matamek ? " 

*'He 's little more than a boy. He is a good 



I GO FROM WORLD TO WORLD 205 

boy, though, strong, and if he tells you something 
it will be true." 

^'The boy thinks," I said. 

**Yes, he is a good boy," said Mr. Harkness. 
and so it happened that, after I had telephoned 
Roberval in fruitless inquiry for that permit, and 
had bought stores of Mr. Hamilton with Matamek 
in council, we launched our canoe on a seraphic 
lake at six-thirty of the clock. The month was 
still June. It was only of the century that I was 
in doubt. 

During that day we said nothing. Have you 
ever started on a quest, to wake at some moment 
to the wondering whether you are a lineal 
descendant of the original Goose? It is one of 
my favorite fantasies. Look at us more closely. 
There was I plodding across a lake of extraor- 
dinary flatness and length, committed to the care 
of an unknown red-man, due to spend several 
nights in the wilderness for which we had but 
hastily prepared. How did I know that — and 
then followed through my mind all the things that 
might happen, the chief of which was boredom. 
I had come for information. The sage had not 
opened his lips. 

Furthermore the sun was hot. Forest-fires 
had created a drooping haze that dulled the 
shore-lines but quenched none of the sun. 



206 THE LAURENTIANS 

Rather did it imprison the heat, once delivered, 
and apparently condense it into a turgid at- 
mosphere that sat heavily upon the water. I 
tried not to be outdone at the bow paddle by a 
boy. But he was Nimrod 's own, and driving our 
laden canoe through the water did not seem to 
tire him. As vigorously as I could, I pulled at 
the liquid with my stave. There was such lots 
of it ahead ! 

The broad mouth of the Ashuapmouchouan lay 
reeking with heat at our right. Noon shot ar- 
rows of blunted fire upon us from on high. The 
breathless shimmering beaches of the Mistassini 
seemed desperately far. Matamek uttered no 
sound, but dug his paddle into the inert lake. 

''Will you eat something;" I asked. 

"No. Too hot." 

"Then, by all the gods, let 's smoke." 

We smoked in silence; and it was then that 
Hope interrupted her usual task and said to me, 
"Well, really, aren't we fools!" 

"We '11 see," I whispered to her. I have some 
pride; then aloud, "What are you thinking about, 
Matamek?" 

"Winter." He said. I looked at him in sur- 
prise. He meant it. "It is winter in my 
thoughts," he continued. "Cold air comes in 
through where the tent is tied. My feet are cold, 
even in the furry moccasins. The little spruces 



I GO FROINI WORLD TO WORLD 207 

crack witli the frost. ITgh! I shiver. The fire 
is nearly out. I caimot like to "unroll the blan- 
kets to fix it." 

**Stop!" I laughed, ''you '11 give me a chilL 
It 's such a sudden change." 

He laughed, and the ice was broken. He chat- 
tered now. It was from deference of my being 
his employer that he had been silent. Hope re- 
sumed her ofiice within me, aided now by cer- 
tainty. The difficult moment when equals meet 
equals among the employer and employed was 
past. Class is the most obvious outcome of an 
inequal world. But reserve, for class' sake, is un- 
intelKgent. War, I think, is the stupidest of all 
the conventions; but snobbishness comes next. 
And mental snobbishness is the ne plus ultra of 
its kind. If I had got into that canoe considering 
that I was, intellectually, cleverer than Matamek, 
the belief was beginning to wane. ''I am now 
digging a path through the snow," said I to my- 
self as I picked up the paddle. 

The rest of the day seemed short, for compan- 
ionship can cut the monotony of travel incredibly. 
A good gossip will foreshorten the hours better 
than the most virtuous reflections; and I would 
rather do a journey with brigands, who have 
some reminiscences, than with the best educated 
mummer in the world. We made camp, not at 
the Mistassini's mouth, which is sandy, brushy, 



208 THE LAURENTIANS 

and gnatty, but a little way up where the banks 
begin to rise into birch forest. 

We had brought no tent, for Matamek had in- 
sisted that there would be no rain for our five 
days; and, if there should be, I had thought it 
would be more interesting to watch his discom- 
fiture than be ever so patently prepared. Nei- 
ther had we my fly-tent. But we had an ax, and 
an indefinite amount of beach-wood, and green- 
blue plumy balsam, and a wizard of the wilder- 
ness to combine these elements into bed, and 
shelter and cook-fire. For the flies, Matamek 
had me cut some long marsh-grass. Then when 
dusk approached he made mounds of coal from 
the supper-fire on either side of our balsam- 
bough lounge, and putting a few wisps of this 
green hay upon them, we were plentifully sup- 
plied with acrid smoke. It was a night of con- 
tentment well advanced beyond the ordinary ; not 
the quiescent sort of a trout-and-bacon supper, 
nor only the greater contentment of tired mus- 
cles, an objective reached, and a day well passed. 
Eather within me there bubbled springs of hap- 
piness, ever welling up into cool grottoes of the 
spirit. It was the incomparable moment of the 
month. To the North the wilderness, around me 
the savage beauty of desolation that thrilled like 
a rising east wind in, a lonely cabin's eaves, and 



I GO FROM WORLD TO WORLD 209 

by me the child of curious habitudes, made 
strange and beautiful in the sunset light of his 
race. 

I asked him to tell me about the life he led in 
winter. Pieced together, this is what he said: 
''It is all trapping. Monsieur, or getting ready 
to trap. You see my father has a trap-line two 
days long, for he is getting old. Mine is three 
days. That is the most fun of the year, to go 
along wondering what you have in the trap ; it is 
more fun than fishing even." 

''What do you carry, Matamek? Begin at the 
beginning. ' ' 

"The beginning is getting ready. Your squaw 
or your mother does up a bit of tea and salt and 
bread for three days. You see to it that she has 
the fry-pan clean, and you take a blanket. Two 
if it is cold. My father and I have a piece of 
bush as big as half the distance we have come." 
(I found out that a family usually keeps about a 
hundred square miles for its use in Matamek's 
country of the upper Mistassini. Areas vary 
with the nearness to civilization and the size of 
the family. As much as 300 square miles is not 
an unheard-of area to be trapped over.) 

' ' My father had our place, from his father, and 
my son shall have it from me." 

"Have you any hopes of a son?" I asked. 



210 THE LAURENTIANS 

His eyes glinted as he laughed. *'0h! There 
will be one. Two, three perhaps. I have not 
found my woman yet." 

*'Bnt you are getting old, Matamek." The 
boy was verging on nineteen. 

''Not so old. My father married when he had 
eighteen years. But there were more choices. 
I have not seen her yet. When I see her I shall 
know it is my woman. ' ^ 

Here, at least, was a difference between moc- 
casins and street leathers. 

"How, Matamek?" 

He looked at me. "Will it not be like seeing a 
salmon in a pool, Monsieur?" 

"Very hke," I ventured, and since then I have 
often thought of Matamek 's figure for the tumul- 
tuous heart. 

Also, judging from what Matamek told me, the 
squaw must have all the feelings of the captured 
fish. Her duty is to do everything that is dis- 
tasteful to her lord and captor, such as keeping 
up the wood-supply, skinning the game that is 
brought in, being cook and seamstress and nurse- 
maid. The children in an Indian family are kept 
washed and well and instructed. Recently their 
instructions have included the religious formulae 
of the church. The matter of menus is becoming 
more complicated since the Indians have acquired 
a taste for bread. It used to be that they ate only 



I GO FROM WORLD TO WORLD 211 

game and fish, drank broth made from game in- 
stead of tea, and had no flour, no vegetables. But 
civilization spreads like iris-colored oil on virgin 
waters. Recently I heard of an old Indian carry- 
ing back into the primeval forest an electric wash- 
ing-machine, unloaded upon him, I suppose, by 
the eloquence of some audacious drummer. May 
that drummer's chore in purgatory be a perpet- 
ual endeavor to start the thing — preferably by a 
crank. 

That evening I learned much more, but only 
admiration, of Matamek and his people ; and long 
after he had curled up and sent his spirit a-voy- 
aging on parole, my wakeful brain refused to dis- 
miss any of my senses for the night. It did the 
rounds as busily as a competent night-watchman 
saying, ''Ears, what was that? Some wanderer 
calling through the night?" For the voices of 
the Mistassini came now and then like the whis- 
perings of passers-by below me. And again, 
''Eyes, look! Did that shape move?" For 
mists as tenuous as star shadows formed before 
my flagging eyes and beckoned. But despite my 
complaints, my brain, stimulated by our talk, or 
by the opportune stillness of the disembodied 
world, whipped up my senses to a delicate acute- 
ness. Like bees they stored up the honey of the 
rare, rare moment for memory to feed on at a 
scarcer time. And if a man will listen to the hum 



212 THE LAURENTIANS 

of the hive contentedly without fear of weariness 
on the morrow, letting the httle bee-senses bring 
him the whiff of distant-passing fox, or that great 
motif of all un-human, lonely things, the owl's 
mating cry — if he'll lie there on the green, cool 
banks of sleep, and let himself be happy, nature 
will draw up the coverlets of slumber, the little 
bees will hive finally in the dusk of consciousness, 
and his spirit will steal forth for its resting-time. 
This is as the gods planned it long ago. 



CHAPTER XIV 

THE MIDDLE AGES ONCE MORE 

I WOKE to look into Matamek's face smiling 
through a cloud of pipe-smoke which the 
morning was too lazy to blow away. He was 
sitting by a new-laid fire, a very small one. Be- 
hind him shone the glare of a day already in its 
teens, a lusty hot youth of a day who had set out 
to frizzle the country in its own juices. 

''Why didn't you wake me, Matamek?" 

''You were having a good sleep-feast. It is 
not good to wake mth your sleep undigested." 

"I had only four hours at that." 

"It is enough for the bow paddle," said my 
boy. He was in good spirits. 

"Here goes for a swim. That '11 make it five 
hours." A cold bath is as good as an extra nap; 
and the Mistassini was cold, despite the solstice 's 
best efforts. 

I wish people knew how to get intoxicated 
aright. The exhilaration of seeing the old pro- 
portions dwindle, of knowing you are more than 
others think you, of seeing a path, and an easy 

213 



214 THE LAURENTIANS 

one at that, up over the heights ahead — this 
is living in clear air, whereas most people are 
content with the stuffiness of actuality. Only 
when intoxicated can you glimpse the career that 
becomes you. 

But I am not speaking of whisky, with its 
groundless egotisms, its poisons that rob Peter 
to pay some outsider, Paul, its senile leerings and 
its inevitable tragedy. I 'm speaking of the nor- 
mal senses, lifted off the common ground by the 
sudden sight of snow-clad peaks, by the hand- 
writing on an envelope, by even a cold plunge in 
a savage Eden. For those who have their senses 
at concert pitch have but to touch the keys. They 
need not the mallets of sensuality to make their 
music with. Baudelaire knew better than he 
practised. His dictum was, ''One should always 
be in a state of drunkenness — either with wine, 
or poetry, or virtue.'^ Delete always and write 
some time, delete wine and write health, and you 
will sing at your work, dream happily, and come 
to your life 's harvest with assurance. God, from 
Whom all blessings flow, had poured the elixir of 
life into my bath that morning. 

The appearance of the Mistassini betokens no 
divine connections; in fact it is the most God- 
deserted river that ever wandered disconsolately 
across a landscape. We labored against a sullen 
current and around curves for breezeless hours. 



THE MIDDLE AGES ONCE MORE 215 

The curves were about as regular and complete 
as if the Creator had used an elongated bed- 
spring for model. I know not to what Montag- 
nais demons did Matamek entrust the future care 
of the stream ; but I would have delivered it, from 
source to mouth, jarred and canned, to my devil 
before we had gone five miles. If any one wishes 
a complete knowledge of sand-banks, or how a 
broiling summer's day acts on a shadeless river, 
or what moth-eaten trees look like, I then advise 
the lower Mistassini. 

We were content to make our camp that night 
just below the junction of three rivers, the Eat, 
the Mistassibi, and ours. Above the great 
cascades sat the tiny village of Mistassini, where 
the Trappists had a monastery. By some 
strange suggestion that the dim walls made to us 
at dusk, our talk that night came back to the ques- 
tion I had pondered that other day on wide St. 
John, when those silent Montagnais seemed to 
have assumed temporary serfdom with a sullen 
proud assent, as though they were the free and 
their employer slave. 

''Matamek," I said, ''what is it you wish to 
be?" 

"A man who knows where the beaver are," he 
said promptly. 

"And what else?" 

"A man with descendants." 



216 THE LAURENTIANS 

''And what else?" 

"A man who can bend his grandmother." He 
meant that he wished to be able in argument. 

''And what else?" 

He could think of nothing farther, so I went 
on : " You want always a feeling that you are free, 
don't you Matamek; to know that nothing binds 
you?" 

"I am free. My father now asks me, 'Is this 
possible, Matamek?' I am free enough." 

"I was wondering," said I, "whether you or 
I come the nearest to having perfect freedom. I 
shall tell you of myself and we '11 judge. In- 
stead of hunting animals, which may or not be 
there to hunt, I make my living hunting up truths 
about people and places and putting them on pa- 
per. There is always much paper, there are al- 
ways many truths. I cannot starve, you might 
say. Yet, to be exact, there are thousands of 
other men doing the same. If they find the places 
or the truths first and say them better, I can 
starve." 

"It is the same for both of us," said Matamek 
sagely. He was now interested. 

"All right. So far we are equally free to live, 
if we are equally able to make our living. But 
think now of the way we live ; which is the freer ? 
Take our bodies. You live in the bush and you 
get sick how often?" 



THE MIDDLE AGES ONCE MORE 217 

''Only at Pointe Bleue. There is balsam in 
the bush." 

''In the city, men are often sick, and even the 
well men rarely know the big health that can 
laugh at portages and rain. Yet in the city, 
Matamek, our doctors can make us glasses for 
weak eyes, and cure aching teeth, and take out 
parts of the body that cause pain, and straighten 
bones and bring drowned men back to life. I 
think again we are equally free in our bodies, 
don't you?" 

"Do you want to wrestle?" asked Matamek, 
with a twinkle in his eye. "We could see." 1 
wish you could have heard the quiet humor in his 
voice. 

"It is settled," I said; "we are equally free in 
the right to live and in the strength to live, and 
just because you can throw me into the river 
means nothing, for I can find white wrestlers who 
could tie you into knots. What I want to find is 
whether we are equally free in everything. Take 
the life in here." And I touched my head. 

Matamek was too polite to say he did not un- 
derstand this last. So I said: "Take the string 
of our thoughts for a whole day, Matamek. 
What do you think about in the bush?" 

"At night I think about what I am going to do 
the next day; and the next day I do it. That is 
all. I look much, think little." 



218 THE LAURENTIANS 

*' Exactly. You are not bothered by a thou- 
sand worries, for your work is straightforward 
work. What this person will think about it, or 
that person, doesn't influence you. No wonder 
you have a clear head. You seem freer than I, 
Matamek. But wait. If you want advice you 
can go only to your father. I can go to wise men 
who lived a thousand years ago and ask them." 

"How is that?" he asked quickly. 

''They have stored their advice in books, and 
we store the books in libraries. I can find out 
what the wisest men have thought and felt and 
done, when they were in the same troubles as my- 
self. That should make me able to deal wisely 
with happenings. And the less ignorant a man 
is when something happens, the freer he is. 
Isn't that so, Matamek?" 

"You have more knowledge," he said quietly. 

"And so more freedom? Do you admit it?" 

"No!" he said vigorously. "Look, Monsieur. 
You cover the thing with words, but what is the 
truth? You come to me and say, 'Matamek, 1 
like this, I like that, I wish I could do these things 
forever; what would I give to be able?' That is 
what you said yesterday, to-day, wasn't it, 
Monsieur?" 

He had me there. He went on: "Well, I do 
these things. I do not say to you, '0, Monsieur, 
if I could only wear your shoes, if I could only 



THE MIDDLE AGES ONCE MORE 219 

sleep ill house-boxes, if I could only have a 
squaw.' I am content. I like moccasins, and I 
will have my squaw next year. You are much 
older. Why do you not bring your squaw with 
your' 

Again he had me. I explained a little of the 
difficulty that the professional man has in equip- 
ping himself with and maintaining a squaw. 

''That is it," he said dehghtedly, for he was 
now warmed to the debate. "You say you are 
more free than Matamek, and you cannot move 
without money, cannot have a squaw be- 
cause she has to be bought, cannot take this trip 
unless you give Matamek money. But I take the 
trip, I can have a squaw, I can move. I am free. 
I need money only for the priest." 

' ' Then I am ahead of you there, ' ' said I heart- 
ily; "my worship is free." 

He shot a look of compassion on me and said: 
"Do not think that I worship to the priest. That 
is a little game we have to play, Monsieur. Here 
is my worship." And he pointed out into the 
dark beyond our fire. "It is all spirit-land. 
Why hide beneath a church to worship? The 
priests says this, my father that. They confuse 
me." 

"What do you believe?" 

"I know," he said, "one thing. I know there 
is a spirit in this tree, in that water, in the great 



220 THE LAURENTIANS 

bush that is son of the Great Spirit. Our stories 
say that these spirits are luck-bringers and dis- 
ease-bringers. I shall not tell my descendants 
that, for I do not know it. I do know if you 
tell your hunting secrets in the bush, that the 
leaves whisper it to the game." Matamek be- 
lieved this. I could not get him to talk of his 
trapping except on the beach at Pointe Bleue 
where there are no trees. 

"Do you really think so?" I asked. 

**I have had it happen. Some day I shall tell 
y?ou. But ought we not to sleep? There are 
portages to-morrow." 

And so we turned in without deciding which 
of us was the freer. Physically, I think Matamek 
had the lead; spiritually we tied; mentally my 
horizons were larger; and morally? What scales 
can weigh the inner man? Happiness, I contend, 
is the sum of a man's loves; and happiness lends 
wings, and wings give liberties hitherto unsus- 
pected. So he that loves the most is the most 
free. Before I could total up our respective af- 
fections I was sound asleep. 

The sun, potent enough the day before, now, 
without the loss of an hour from dawn, began 
to scorch everything in sight that was not nimble 
enough to escape. No leaf on the birch above us 
stirred. Matamek was lying on his blanket, his 



THE MIDDLE AGES ONCE MORE 221 

shirt half off, like a Tait McKenzie sculpture. I 
ransacked my mind for a manly excuse for post- 
poning those portages. Matamek was more skil- 
ful at that; for he pointed to the Monastery St. 
Michel de Mistassini in the glowing distance and 
said, ''They have been up since one o'clock." 

''One o'clock this morning?" I repeated in- 
credulously. 

The Indian nodded. 

"What on earth for?" 

"What in heaven for. Monsieur," smiled Mata- 
mek. "It is their religion." 

"Let 's investigate it," I offered. "Perhaps 
we may want to join them, Matamek." The 
broadest smile that had yet divided his firm lips 
swept the boy's fine face. "Perhaps," he said, 
"but we look first." 

The village of Mistassini owes its existence to 
L'Ordre de la Trappe; but before that much was 
due to the Lord. I doubt if any village in the 
flat-lands of Canada has a location more charm- 
ingly designed by nature. Meadows rise to 
wooded hills, rivers lull the passing hours to 
sleep with crooning waters, cascades lift the 
heart with their wild motion, and the silences of 
the endless North still it again. 

In 1891 when the first monks sought a life of 
seclusion north of Lake St. John they must have 
congratulated themselves on this desert. Aside 



222 THE LAURENTIANS 

from the passings of the Indians down the river 
and the music of the owls at night, there was noth- 
ing to interrupt them in the exercise of their 
perpetual contrition. The Government gave them 
six thousand acres, almost as unnecessary, how- 
ever, as awarding air to windmills. Forty miles 
to the south lay Roberval's unadventurous village. 
To the north lay most of the 450,000,000 acres 
which constitute Quebec Province, mainly vacant. 
Certainly for people distressed with the world 
this was a felicitous asylum. Son Eminence le 
Cardinal Taschereau authorized sa Grandeur 
Monseigneur Begin to press le Reverend Pere 
Abhe to accede to the desires of V Honorable Mon- 
sieur Mercier on the subject of raising funds. 
The adhesion of the faithful was assumed, and 
le Monastere de Mistassini came to blossom in 
the wilderness by the satisfactory, if not very 
original, miracle of the usual methods. 

The ancient monastery with its low buildings 
sheltered by a bank, the great rapids of the Mis- 
tassini plunging by, — the agricultural busy-ness 
about, must have been a picture cosily human, 
too human perhaps for these monks, who in the 
name of Christ had set about mortifying their 
bodies and insulting all their senses. So they 
built a grim three-story house, of a style suited 
to cities, on the saddle of a hill, which struck 
hands with all the winds; and under this roof. 



THE MIDDLE AGES ONCE MORE 223 

bristling with the cross, continued their career 
of abstinence. At its door, shortly before noon 
I knocked, Matamek following. We had heard of 
the hospitahty of the Trappists, and judged that 
a meal with them would be an interesting if not 
a nourishing affair. 

The door was opened by a cenobite, dressed in 
the garb projected by John the Baptist, — a long 
whitish robe, with a girdle, and looking the cos- 
tume cenobitic par excellence. We were invited 
into a strait-sided room where I explained our 
visit. During my stay under that roof I deter- 
mined to keep myself in a sympathetic frame of 
mind. But my flesh crawled, so silent, so gloomy 
the interior as compared with the friendly, over- 
flowing day outside. I was thankful for my sav- 
age famihar standing in impenetrable thought 
beside me. 

Yet the appearance of our host should have 
allayed uneasiness. His hair happened to be the 
color of Christ's in the pictures and was tonsured 
into an invisible halo. His countenance had much 
of the Christhke in it, whether from much pon- 
dering on His image, or from fasting, or from 
the inner cultivation of the fundamentals of Chris- 
tian precept. But there was something missing, 
some lack of warm and surging love which sepa- 
rated this countenance from Christ's as a sim- 
ian's is separated from his keeper's. 



224* THE LAURENTIANS 

There were sixty inmates at present, we were 
told, but eight of them were ill and the head 
monk thought it better that we have lunch else- 
where. I suppose that the eight had a little over- 
done the abstinence. It must be dangerous to 
indulge in riotous fasting when you are living 
on a mere strings as it is. So Matamek and I left 
for the village and a square meal. And at two 
we again rehnquished the sun in order to have the 
Cistercian- life explained. Meanwhile I had had 
a very interesting talk with Matamek on religion. 
I think we both rather braced ourselves against 
reentering that human vault. We were taken in 
charge by still another apostolic-looking monk. 

Please imagine yourself now accompanying 
Matamek and me. We are walking with a fol- 
lower of St. Benoit. It is the year 1100. We do 
not talk. By special dispensation, possibly in the 
hopes of a convert, our cicerone can. We hear 
first about the daily schedule. These men rise 
each morning at two o'clock. I would give my 
Corona to know whether they have an honest 
seraphic glee in their bosoms then, or an honest 
and more comprehensible gloom. On Sundays 
the hour is one; and, for special treat, on holi- 
days it is midnight. 

They pray to the Virgin for thirty minutes, 
then to God for an hour, and so on, miscellane- 
ously, until seven, whereupon breakfast, which is a 



THE MIDDLE AGES ONCE MORE 225 

horribly literal affair. It is not a matter of fruit 
and cereal, eggs and bacon and buttered toast 
and honey with coffee and rich cream — most of 
which delicacies these saints produce upon their 
desert. They are allowed bread and water; just 
enough bread to push life forward. 

It is over by 7:15, when another office is said, 
whereupon the monks of the choir go to manual 
labor in the houlangerie or the cordonnerie or the 
poulailler or grange or etahles or ecuries or most 
often in the fields, until 12:15, when more cere- 
mony. 

At two they file, speechless, into a basement 
dining-room, whose darkness, stone floor, boards 
for table, and rigorous stools would dampen one 's 
enthusiasm for a Thanksgiving dinner. A tin 
of soup is cooling before each place. But, in case 
the self in a man's body should perk up its head 
for a second's wistful satisfaction, they are pro- 
vided with the means to drive it back. At the 
overseer's hammer, each monk draws his knotted 
whip and scourges himself on legs and shoulders 
till the overseer gives the signal to quit. Follow- 
ing this appetizer come cabbage and onions and, 
more bread and water, along with this reflection, 
"This life is nothing, eternity is everything," 
to the first part of which I would by then be in 
a condition to subscribe. 

There follows more manual labor until vespers 



226 THE LAURENTIANS 

at 4:45; when, after studies and more prayers 
and some water and bread, these gentle souls 
betake themselves to a hard bed, ensconced in a 
dormitory's niche, at seven. Then, if they have 
no sins of the day to do penance for, they may 
sleep until two again, whereupon begins again this 
amazing routine. 

As we followed our pussy-footed guide, who 
lifted latches (made of wood to prevent noise and 
facilitate spying), from cell to cell, I glanced 
often at Matamek's immobile face to glean his 
impression. Once when a brown-robed wraith of 
a cenobite slunk about a corner to avoid us, — 
his kind but how unlike ! — Matamek looked at me 
as if to say, ^'Did you see that rat?" But most 
of the time he was impressed, as was I, by the 
fearful erasement of human joy, which these men 
accomplished with a sort of terrible satisfaction. 

When we had seen the room of meditation, the 
airless dormitory, and the library outfitted with 
*' Lives of the Saints" which could instigate, I 
should think, hardly a more prodigious penance 
than these moderns were undergoing, we were 
taken downstairs where we could talk ; and I found 
out the principles of the Trappist regime. There 
are five: 

The first is based on a community life hinted at 
in the New Testament. St. Benoit, the founder, 
wanted to go the Acts one better, however, by 



THE MIDDLE AGES ONCE MORE 227 

generating' a fortissimum genus monacJiorum, a 
species of believers whose incredible austerity 
might astonish even the infidel. So he advocated 
that they have everything in common, that they 
abolish the personal, until the self should be lost 
in the whole. Good St. Benoit admitted that it 
might be painful, that the soul might long for 
liberty and isolation or the personal intimacies. 
But away with these if a monk would elevate him- 
self to God! 

To aggravate the effect of perpetual contact 
they promulgated a law of perpetual silence. Per- 
petual, mind you! Thus, while ever with your 
fellows, you might ever be with God. It is like 
living ever at the bottom of a Cistercian well. 
But by doing this the monks follow to the letter 
the sixth chapter of the Order of St. Benoit. It 
is their golden rule, and I must admit they affirm 
it in golden words : ^ ' Le silence est 1 ' entretien de 
la divinite, le language des anges, 1' eloquence du 
ciel, 1' art de persuader Dieu, 1' ornement des 
solitudes sacrees, le sommeil des sages qui veil- 
lent, la plus soUde nourriture de la providence, 
le lit des vertus ; en un mot la paix et la grace se 
trouvent dans le sejour d' un silence bien garde." 
To me they seemed like souls bottled in the wine- 
cellar of the Lord. The devil in me longed to 
hear one blow his cork. 

This uninterruptible silence certainly is favor- 



228 THE LAURENTIANS 

able to prayer ; particularly as news of the world, 
literature, the progress of science, or any of those 
things which strengthen curiosity (that deadly 
enemy of their God) all tend to poverty of 
thought. If one has nothing to think about while 
hoeing potatoes one must pray. So the divine 
office is celebrated incessantly. They can whip 
their lips if not their souls into a frenzy of ac- 
tivity; and they do it. 

But praying can conceivably degenerate into 
a lazy man's job, so the far-seeing St. Benoit ad- 
vocated a redoubtable routine of manual labor, 
interpersed with theological studies, deemed 
harmless to one's Vanity. Curiosity, avarice, 
and pride are the sure result of other reading. 

The fifth tenet of the Trappist concerns pen- 
ance. At first blush it seemed to me superfluous. 
The life of perpetual elbowing one's neighbor, 
without ever exchanging a good morning with 
him, the life of endless prayer and never-to-be- 
ended work seemed so moderately tempered with 
self-gratification as to make the need for penance, 
or even penitence, unnecessary. I was interested 
in reading in one of their tracts about the regu- 
lation of the diet. After exhorting a little more 
crucifixion of the body during the festivals (ironic 
term) by subsisting on their two ounces of bread 
and their bowl of water the writer, ravished by 
the temperate idea, breaks out into this valedic- 



THE MIDDLE AGES ONCE MORE 229 

tory: ''0 happy monks! one can say, who fast 
so vehemently, who make of your fasting your 
nourishment. happy stewards! who nourish 
your worki so cheaply, and are never tempted to 
make economies on this spiritual pittance," etc., 
etc., for an ecstatic page. What verbal wreaths 
would he not have laid on the eight invalids who 
had lately been too engrossed in starving them- 
selves to heed their ebbing strength! 

At length Matamek and I were escorted into 
the day. The sun put its warm arms about us, 
and the Being, whom Matamek called the Great 
Spirit and I call God, welcomed us back. I 
thought of David, also used to working in the 
fields as these men, and able to say, ''The earth 
is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof; the world, 
and they that dwell therein." '^'The fulness 
thereof," thought I, and like a rainbow across a 
receding storm the words pictured for me ocean- 
going ships, orchestras, firesides, adventure, the 
gateways of music, home. With my lips I was 
saying farewell to our guide. He asked me to 
say a prayer for him. He seemed almost to be 
begging for that prayer. I cannot say that he 
seemed unhappy. I offered him a tip. He took 
it. And the door of his prison jarred to, leaving 
us out there in the fulness thereof. 

' ' Come, Matamek, I ' U race you to the river, ' ' 
I said. 



CHAPTEE XV 

SOAKING 

CIVILIZATION used to advance by means of 
a Marquette here, a Daniel Boone there, 
with a handful of followers the next year if prac- 
ticable. To-day civilization makes massed at- 
tack on the wilderness, causing it to blossom a few 
weeks later with real-estate offices, roaches, and 
cathedrals. 

There I was in northernmost Mistassini with 
not a garage, a telephone, or even a pig-sty be- 
tween me and the Pole. Yet that precocious vil- 
lage had all three. At least, I am sure of the 
pig-sties, and in the house which gave you food, 
when all the cenobites were ill, there was a tele- 
phone, on which if you rang and wrangled long 
enough you could converse with Roberval. This, 
by some sudden flare of inspiration, I did, and 
found from Captain Kenny of the air station that 
my permit had arrived. What a miserable di- 
lemma ! Here I was leaning over the edge of civ- 
ilization, expecting to lose my balance in it with 
my Indian. If I persisted I might lose my flight 
as well. 

230 



SOARING 231 

*'That is all right," the captain was saying 
in his quiet way, "we 're thinking of making a 
cache on the Rat to-morrow and can pick you up, ' ' 
and after he had instructed me where to wait I 
left the room, walking on air — a sort of prelimi- 
nary aviation. 

"Haul me down, Matamek; we 've got to make 
plans," but in the intervals of planning I would 
find myself off ground. 

Next morning we were early at the rendezvous, 
a lagoon-like stretch of river which had almost 
finished its errand of message-bringing from the 
mystic North. The canoe, whose movement be- 
neath the hand of Matamek was like the breath- 
ing of a beautiful steed, carried a very imper- 
turbable Indian, wrapped in the mantle of racial 
silence, and a not imperturbable me. For I was 
now hedged about with the very stuff of which 
my dreams had been made, listening for that far- 
away whir of the great bird. The day, sitting on 
the golden dais of heaven with folded hands, was 
perfect. 

At last it came ; the flying-boat heralded by its 
locust droning, skimmed the river like an osprey 
seeking fish, and dragged its talons in the water 
to a halt. Any heart not absolutely torpid with 
age would have beat faster at the sight of this 
craft destined to draw planets closer. 

"Captain Kenny was detained," said the pilot 



232 THE LAURENTIANS 

leaning out. ''I want you to meet Mr. Allen 
Wilson. ' ^ 

''And conversely," said Mr. Wilson, "meet Mr. 
T. A. Lawrence." 

The greatest moments do not convey all their 
rarity at the time; and I found myself saying 
au revoir to Matamek in ordinary tones, donning 
the garb they gave me and climbing into the ma- 
chine with a heart still unshattered by the occa- 
sion. My abode was a hole in the prow with a 
removable bottom-piece through which photo- 
graphers could gaze upon the globe below and, 
like Medusa, turn it into an enduring thing. Only 
they did it with gelatin instead of snakes. 

"Are you ready?" asked Lawrence. When I 
nodded he touched something or other and we 
withdrew from earth, as easily and as eerily as 
it happens in dreams. To have what one wants 
without even the expense of volition is the ne 
plus ultra of Aladdin certainly. 

I looked over my nest's edge like a young robin, 
or rather like a blessed he damosel. Matamek 
dissolved. The fields of the Trappists and the 
roof of their self-made Gehenna dropped be- 
hind. The only tentacle of humanity which re- 
mained was a solitary road along the river. Until 
we had passed this I should not be entirely happy, 
for the lands of my fancy have always been un- 
tilled. 



SOARING 233 

The even roar of our propeller made conversa- 
tion as impossible as at an afternoon tea, and 
one could think and observe and feel the strong 
pulse of new emotions crowding' without having 
to dissipate them immediately in trying to out- 
chatter other simians. Here one could be a god 
and taste his godship undiluted with anything 
but the sharp tang of ozone. Men have indeed 
wished not unworthily for wings. 

We had been following the snakings of the 
Mistassini, and now that human road down below, 
which so long had dogged our shadow, began to 
flag and weary of the chase. It led to a cabin, 
and beyond that into a wood-lot and was lost. 
Here civilization ceased. No more ripe meadows, 
no more cattle standing in the yard, no house- 
wives drawing water. All that was south of us, 
gone. AJiead lay only the un-roaded currents 
of the air and spaces on the map largely empty 
of name, except for a few blue clusterings of 
lakes and the black lines of rivers. The colored 
moments unrolled for me immeasurable woods, 
wallowing rivers, and distances diazzling with 
lakes. The ponderous earth became a unity. As 
the pettiness of detail faded the truth of it all 
focused into vividness. For once I was seeing 
the earth and the world. 

At first the forest map immediately beneath 
was a disappointment. Great areas of burnt 



234* THE LAURENTIANS 

lands showed bare as the Valley of Dry Bones, 
the white rocks pale in the rising sun, with here 
and again a tongue of green fir-forest running 
down some sheltered valley which the flames had 
overleapt. The great river, shrunk from the 
spring floods, ran between ribbons and crescents 
of sand, often dividing into many channels. 
Aspen groves thinly greened the banks, and strag- 
gling bands of birch took stand against the shift- 
ing stream. Often the islands that reared like 
green hedgehogs wading in the current were the 
most interesting of all. Occasionally we would 
pass a muskeg, whereon I hoped for moose. 

Just before we turned up the Rat River we 
crossed a fleet of Indians going to the post. I 
wondered what they thought when, wheeling, our 
first flash of silver struck their eyes; wondered, 
too, what the leader of a flock of ducks which we 
over-flew considered us, wondered most of all 
what lay behind the ranges. Far toward the 
northeast the mountains rose in suggestive chains 
that seemed to point a finger further north, and 
I would have liked to follow it forever. On the 
northwest other mountains hung low along the 
horizon. Straight ahead shone low lands, un- 
kempt woods, and a wild desolation of lakes. We 
pointed along the very path Polaris would b^e 
lighting, were winging steadily on the highway of 
the northern lights. As far as I could see ahead 



SOARING 235 

into the misty radiance of morning, our way 
was clear to the faint-sounding shores of 
Grand Lac Mistassini, and the muskeg-covered 
slopes of the mother of streams. 

Below us the Rat River suddenly pushed back 
its banks a mile and became Lac aux Rats, a 
silver-way of several miles in length. With a 
clutch of regret I realized that our destination 
lay beneath. Down we plunged, glided, ran like 
arriving Mercury over the waters, and so, as 
softly as sunset becomes evening, came to the 
level of the lake, and the green shelter of the for- 
est world. My dreams had been no better than 
the thing. 

^'What do you say to a little breakfast?" asked 
Wilson. We had indeed come down to earth. 

I believe that I am composed of romance and 
realism in equal quantities. In the old song, 
''What Are Little Boys Made Of?" I have al- 
ways considered that the boys had scarcely a fair 
deal. Yet it might have fortified the author of 
that lyric in his views to have observed us three 
men, just arrived in a spot more beautiful than 
the Forest Spell in ''Siegfried," turn our backs 
on the breathless mirror of the lake, on the cen- 
turied spruces and the gleaming strand, and di- 
rect our immortal souls toward hacking bacon 
into strips. 

Instead of reciting something like "How quiet 



236 THE LAURENTIANS 

sleeps the moon on yonder bank," Lawrence 
said, ''Where in the devil did I lay that can- 
opener 1 ' ' 

And instead of ''Think, in this batter 'd cara- 
vanserai. ..." Allen replied, "Damned if I 
know." 

It was a radiant meal. And I was glad to have 
the world with me again. After those lonely 
days in Roberval, those alien hours with Mata- 
mek, that fearful glimpse into the strained eyes 
of those mistaken monks, it was restful to live 
normally again, and a delight to have fallen into 
these fellows' hands. We gulped down biogra- 
phies with our coffee, and rose acquainted. 

Our work, which was merely to unload a few 
tins of gasolene from the boat and cache it be- 
neath a tarpaulin for a future flight still farther 
north, was soon done, and I went to inspect a 
shack near-by. Perhaps I am too easily thrilled. 
But there was something about that cabin, de- 
serted by its trapper owner, waiting in that sunny 
cove, that was as picturesque to me as some 
thatched inn, of cool walls and swinging sign, 
in Leicestershire, where Queen Elizabeth may 
have stopped to dry her gaiters, when Shakspere 
was a youth. For the use of this cabin was 
centuries old, if not the logs themselves, and the 
forest about it, of black spruce and canoe birch, 
sprang from a soil lazy in its primeval habits. 



SOARING 237 

The door yielded to the touch, for the old Indian, 
now at the post, no more anticipated visitors than 
did Abraham that night the angels stopped; and 
had he expected them, he would have locked noth- 
ing away. For it is the amazing circumstance 
in this country that one's open treasures are not 
pilfered, and that one can leave a canoe or a fish- 
ing-rod or a bale of food anywhere one pleases 
and find it untouched. 

The interior was fairly wanton with things I 
would have liked for mementos: skins still on 
stretchers, a gun or two, drawings on fungi, two 
or three sets of antlers, one caribou, two moose, 
and all the implements of the man's life-work. 
Outside there were some bear skulls stacked on a 
post. Before going on a hunt, I am told, these 
trappers still implore aid from their totem, and 
when about to kill large game, say, ''Forgive me, 
Bear." There are manners in the wilderness. 
Imagine a pig-sticker in Armour's saying ''For- 
give me, Shoat; pardon me, Swine!" True 
or not, there were the skulls impaled. And what 
curious juxtaposition of ancient and modern prac- 
tice! The apology to the ursus moriturus, then 
the crack of modern gun; ghost and gunpowder. 
Even in this high latitude civilization had begun 
to dig the grave for poetry. 

It was mid-morning now in this morning world, 
and I fancied a polite anxiety to be off kindling 



238 THE LAURENTIANS 

in my pilots' breasts. I would gladly have stayed 
there until the moose came down and ate from my 
hand, as the black flies were already doing. In- 
deed we were equipped for it, since the flying- 
boat carried emergency rations for a fortnight, 
a set of tools, anchor and line, shotgun and am- 
munition, signal pistol and colored light, fish- 
net, life-belts and preservers, blankets, pots and 
pans — though no piano. It all tempted me to 
pray for a forced landing on some obscure river- 
beach, handy to trout and game, where we could 
do a light housekeeping, with writing up the 
diary by day, and experimenting with the colored 
lights at night. But I left the prayer unuttered ; 
I despise ingratitude. 

And so we flew away. 

The next weeks I lived in an oasis. Oases 
isually occur in deserts ; this occurred in Roberval. 
It took the form of fraternity house officered by 
Captain Kenny and peopled by the rest of the air 
station, of whom I was chiefly intimate with 
Wilson and Lawrence and the Rutherfords. 

The air station consisted of a little harbor made 
by a breakwater and Cimon Simon's dock, the 
Ouiatchouanische River which spouted or sulked 
into the harbor according to the rains, an office 
building-airdrome, a photographer's den, a scow, 
a bear, and a paling fence. I had often looked 
longingly over the paling fence; now I was to 



SOARING 239 

live inside it ; live, moreover, with witty young fel- 
lows in that happiest sort of friend-making which 
is disguised in jester-gibe and scholar-motley. 
I had forgotten persiflage existed. 

''The air board at Ottawa and the Provincial 
Government here are both backing this work,'* 
said Captain Kenny, a man in the warm-hearted 
early summer of his years. "We combine pa- 
trolling for signs of forest-fire, with photographic 
work in connection with timber-limits and geo- 
graphic exploration. Most of the country to the 
north, northeast, and northwest of us is virtually 
unknown. We hope to penetrate as far as Grand 
Lac Mistassini this season. That 's three hun- 
dred miles from here. I 'd like you to see that 
country to the northwest. It 's more interesting 
than due north, or at least the country this side 
of the Rat. How long can you stay?" 

I intimated a period co-existent with my natural 
hfe. 

"Then I '11 take you up to Stacker Lake, up 
the Ashuapmouchouan. We 're making a cache 
there. An interesting family of Indians live on 
Stacker. It 's a pity you were n't here last week; 
I think we 're in for bad weather. ' ' 

After lunch they took me out in the speed- 
boat, while telling me a little of their work. I 
was as happy as a kid, who has not only run 
away from school, but is promised a fishing-ex- 



240 THE LAURENTIANS 

cursion and, later, immunity from punishment at 
home by a namesake uncle. I had supper with 
them. 

That evening initiated me into the delectable 
routine of loafing which I was to follow for days 
and days : supper with Kenny and Lawrence and 
Wilson, and two cigarettes' worth of talk around 
the table. Then while they did a few more chores 
in that mysterious office of theirs I sat out on 
the rocks of the Ouiatchouanische and toyed with 
the bear or drowned reality in sunsets. Shapes 
of flowing worlds, colors of the divine dream, 
marvels of cloud-music in silent andantes or maes- 
toso winds marked that hour; and Lake St. John 
is memory's frame for immoderate visions. Then 
back to earth and over to their cottage, for an 
hour of anecdote or the Victor and pipe-smoke 
and happy idleness. Then to Madame Huot's. 
Madame Huot's was our habit, and habit 
makes curious things enjoyable. Instead of 
renewing our youth like the eagle's by taking 
deep breaths outdoors, we had Madame Huot 
renew our glasses. Chocolate sundaes will be 
forevermore indissoluably associated with this 
picture in my mind: a little table under glaring 
lights, opposite me lazy Kenny telling man's tales, 
on one side Wilson, lazier, recalling anecdotes of 
London, on the other Lawrence — no not laziest, 



SOARING 241 

I was that, in addition to being happily immune 
to thought. And so to bed. 

The weather, hitherto a marvel of monotony, 
now began to injure itself in an effort to prevent 
more flights. The next morning a mist had set 
in from the north. The day after the mist had 
changed to a northeast rain. The program 
changed, daily, through all the varieties known to 
weather — blasts, tempests, hurricanes, typhoons, 
and (I think) once a sirocco. Daily, too, the Air 
Board's comment intensified; and it was just be- 
fore we had all reached a state of chronic impiety 
that the wind changed and did me the eternal 
favor of blowing me into the Eutherfords. 

I remember how it happened. The wind, 
having exhausted all the easterly directions, had 
dropped for a moment before settling into a good 
long blow from the west. The clouds had parted, 
and the sun, deceptive as the golden calf, had 
begun to shine. I was hastening smartly down to 
the air station to make my usual inquiries of 
Kenny and had got to the door of the photographic 
department when a sudden personal cloud en- 
veloped me, like ^neas's, but for less accommo- 
dating reasons ! ''I never saw it rain harder," is 
the usual description. But it didn't rain; it 
squirted. And to avoid being purged from the 
earth I dove into Eutherford's den. 



242 THE LAURENTIANS 

Looking back on it, I call that a fortuitous 
shower, for thanks to it I met an artist and made 
a friend, two of them, for Mrs. Eutherford came 
in upon a discussion we were having, three hours 
later, as to whether Conrad should be illustrated, 
and haled us home to lunch, the first of many like- 
animated meals. Rutherford had not only the 
art of laying hold on the face of things with a 
camera and making it expressive; he also had a 
sense of humor — an essential to long life in Rober- 
val. With a feeling for beauty, a profession that 
satisfies it, and a sense of humor with which to 
tease the Fates, a man ought to be happy, I should 
say, particularly with a Mrs. Rutherford. They 
were amused at some of Matamek's arguments 
against the Trappist life. 

"You should see Matamek's cousin, the gor- 
geous Naita," said Walter. '^She used to sell 
flowers here. She dresses better than anybody 
in town, in excellent taste really, and her manner 
is positively regal. When she passes she just 
deigns to notice one in a Queen Mary manner. 
Unfortunately she occasionally makes an error 
of judgment when she is drunk. Drank once a 
cupful of iodine, being under the impression that 
it was a milder stimulant." 

For three more days the wind blew beneath 
heavens as bright and blue and golden as the 
summery fields. I would have perished of ex- 



SOARING 243 

asperatioii and taken the train had it not been 
for the Rutherford hmcheon parties, the Kenny 
& Co. evenings. I tried to solace myself with 
such philosoph}^ as 

He who does not fly to-day 
May hve to later, anyway. 

But the best of storms must part. One eve- 
ning the vniid stole away, the twilight clothed 
herself in blue and silver and set a star in her 
hair, the lake became once more hospitable to 
flying-boats, and a moon called to the Endymion 
of those silent-spaced forests. I longed to fly 
away into that ethereal light; I was afraid such 
beauty could not last. But Kenny explained how 
hard it was to land on moonlit waters, especially 
if one did n 't know them, and we compromised 
on an early start the next day — Kenny, Ruther- 
ford, and the neophyte. 

The next day — well, you know how it is when 
one starts to pin immensities to paper; all the 
immenseness goes and you have dead weight and 
a paragraph of dying words on your hands. It 
is like trying to set the Alps to music. The best 
that science can do is to poise a stuffed humming- 
bird over a museum morning-glory and say Ex- 
hibit X-319.2, Hummingbirdum Sawdusticum. 
All the God of it has escaped. And it is the same 
with flight. You cannot convey it between book- 



2U THE LAURENTIANS 

covers, not even with all the winged words of 
Homer himself. I shall rest with saying that 
next day, ten minutes after coffee, and twenty 
after dawn, we left the planet. 

The sun writes the epics of the years. The 
moon has her romances and her fantasies, and the 
stars tell fairy-tales of the unhabitable vast, but 
it is the sun that combines both the glory and 
the go of greatness. A man must be a constitu- 
tional mollycoddle indeed, whose every fiber does 
not tingle, whose being does not glow, with the 
color, the newness, the daring of that moment 
when one casts off from earth, to soar in the me- 
dium of the infinite. That morning things con- 
spired to give me profound happiness. There in 
my aerial prow-pit I could survey the world — a 
world bathed in such a sea of calm and color as 
no magic-handed painter could portray. I was 
being flown by two men whom it was good to be 
with. And we were off exploring. I felt a bit 
of that lucid madness which drove Columbus 
west. Under Kenny's hand we mounted stead- 
ily, turned west, and felt the drift of air from 
inland places sting our brows as we took the gen- 
eral trend of the valley Ashuapmouchouan. 

This river with the Indian name (meaning 
''where the moose were seen" or ''where the 
moose feed," or "where the moose come down to 
drink," depending on the particular Indian you 



SOARING 245 

ask), is, like the Mistassini and the Peribonka, 
very long, very wide, and very shallow. From my 
aery I could see its estuary lying, like a miniature 
Mississippi's, in the lake, its colors ranging 
through all the golds and ambers. It was very lux- 
ury itself to press through the air and watch the 
riffles below which spell such weary effort for those 
poUng up the stream. The islands at the mouth 
faded astern, St. Felicien faded; the pastures, 
insectiverous with cows, became more rare and 
passed from sight; lakes beckoned to right and 
left of the mighty river, the forest closed in upon 
it. We were left with the universe. 

Our objective was Stacker Lake, a hundred 
miles up the Ashuapmouchouan, that is, about 
an hour and a half's worth of ecstasy away. To 
drop into it from the breathless rush of air was 
hke resting in some ivied cloister open to the sun. 
Spruce-battalioned hills protected it from the 
winds, a broad beach gave it a silver frame, and, 
for touch of soul-color in the picture, an Indian 
woman in a scarlet hood was fishing from a canoe 
far along. Thus did we tap the vintage of the 
savage North, and taste the bubbly moment in 
its perfection. We were drunk to silence on its 
beauty for a moment, and in that moment saw 
beyond the fugitive scene into the changeless 
and eternal. 

The next moment all was stir. Other women 



246 THE LAURENTIANS 

emerged from tents at the lake-head, innumerable 
children appeared from behind the trees, dogs 
barked; and, seeing that we were not going to 
annihilate the earth with spear-flashings of fire, 
another oanoe, containing the two men of the 
lake, was launched. 

Allow me to record another thought. Having 
read of the first acceptance of Columbus as a 
divine being, of the obeisance and worship ac- 
corded old de Soto, I wondered if these savages 
might not receive us on like misconception, and 
believe us to be, say, the Trinity descended for 
an informal call. Could the setting have been 
more speciously arranged? Savages, a day clear 
at last as if by a miracle, and three angels drop- 
ping down from the rather inaccessible above. 
Could anything appear more naturally super- 
natural? Could we, I ask, expect anything less 
than a complimentary burnt offering? 

Alas for such vainglorious anticipations! In- 
stead of besetting us with requests for salvation 
the elder Indian asked us for the news, and what 
is more, in French that put mine to the blush. 
Like most of the other Indians in Hither Gaul, 
he and his families had visited the post, and had 
seen the plane there. He said that the children 
were not scared, only shy. We were invited 
ashore. 

They had planted their community on a point 



SOARING 247 

of land at the head of the lake, cutting down all 
trees except three dignified spruces, and unlike 
the more nomadic Montagnais of the north, util- 
izing a log-house as well as two tents. The floor 
of the house was made of flattened logs, there 
being no boards within a hundred miles. 

They, like us, had had breakfast; and we, un- 
like them, were unready for the next meal. How- 
ever there seemed to be no gentle method of 
quenching their hospitality in the spark. Soon 
the fire burned, and the food on it, and shortly 
I was gnawing at jerked caribou for the first time 
in my life. All the jerking had not been done to 
my caribou. I had not supposed that caribou 
came within striking distance of Stacker; but 
when I made the observation to Rutherford he 
said: ''Caribou? That 's nothing for this for- 
e'st. I wouldn't be surprised at a pachyderm." 
It 's great fun being with Rutherford; you 're 
helped into the atmosphere of things. As later : 
''Walter," I said, "if you were a census-taker, 
how would you list all those children?" 

"Mostly as accidental." 

"But, even at that, it 's odd." 

' ' Not to a census-taker. Two men, four women, 
no union hours; cipher it up." 

"You mean polygamy?" 

"Yes, but openly arrived at, as your Wood- 
row Wilson would say, and since the bush looks 



24?8 THE LAURENTIANS 

far from overcrowded as we flew in, far be it 
from me to indulge in carping criticism." 

These Indians had lived on Stacker, we were 
told, for thirty years ; and not realizing the neces- 
sity of movies, victrolas, snappy stories, ice- 
cream, and automobiles, seemed happy. They 
helped Kenny cache his gasolene, and as the boat 
would come again Kenny asked if he could bring 
them anything. To our surprise the only thing 
they wanted was a cat, to frighten off the chip- 
munks and red squirrels which infested the camp. 

''We '11 have a round-up in Roberval," said 
Eutherf ord, ' ' and rain cats on them. ' ' 

In gratitude they pressed upon us about a half- 
gallon of boiled blueberry pulp, their winter confi- 
ture, and rather insipid stuff for lack of sugar. 

It would have been great fun to have spent 
the day there and become ethnologists. Every 
half -hour disclosed something entirely new to my 
racial way of life. But every minute our going 
became more imperative, if we were to go at all, 
for puffy clouds with portentous bellies rose over 
the hills, and did not drift away. Our brilliant 
dawn had developed an unpracticable temper, as 
is the way of brilliance, and I climbed into the 
boat with a heart heavy enough to prevent our 
ever taking off. For this flight would be my last ; 
I had no further excuse for tarrying in Eoberval ; 
whereupon I found I loved it. 



'I 




THE SAGUENAY AND LAKE ST. JOHN 



SOARING 249 

As we rose above the trees my melancholy was 
startled into wonder by no less a sight than a 
multitude of rainbows. Now I have no intention 
of flinging myself, from that height, into a bitter 
scientific dispute. I don't know how many rain- 
bows there were at once. There seemed to be 
multitudes. From one and now another of the 
horizon-riding clouds drifted pale draperies of 
rain, and on the draperies hung broken arcs of 
color. We flew into some fleeting gray, almost 
invisible mists, stinging to the face, and looking 
below I saw that the swift sun had set the flying 
drops to dancing down the spectrum. The land- 
scape was drenched with blues and grays and 
fleckings of careering sun. Ahead a cloud-giant 
would tower like a castle one moment, to dissolve 
and don his invisible cloak the next. In a world 
that was a whirlwind of motion and color and 
a-roar in our ears, our flying-boat seemed the one 
stable thing. Kenny held her inexorably on. 
We had had the andante and the scherzo; were 
now in the midst of the great allegro finale of the 
symphony. To have left earth in that moment 
of elation and headed straight for Sirius would 
have caused no pang. 

I wonder what is the alchemy of change, what 
the shifting principle of light that transforms a 
place, no matter how tedious, into a nest of af- 
fection the moment you propose to leave it. Rob- 



250 THE LAURENTIANS 

erval, on my hands, had seemed a place unu- 
surped by a single felicity. Koberval, on the 
point of ceasing to detain me, reminded me of its 
unique and now to be fornevermore-regarded 
scenes. I was to leave Roberval, and it hurt. 
Never again would I utter words on her discon- 
tinuous, ankle- spraining boardwalk, never again 
would I wander on her lonely can-strewn 
beach. And the hang of it was, I was genuinely 
sorry. 



CHAPTER XVI 

STATOMISKATIN-OU 

THE next morning was one of progressive 
farewells, though not all of them were final. 
Rutherford, I predict, will be famous in his art 
some day and I shall do obeisance in his studio. 
And I predict that in the rainy season Kenny & 
Co. will meet around other marble tables, and 
order other things than sarsaparilla, or prophecy 
hath lost her function. So after Mrs. Ruther- 
ford's last chicken dinner, and the last au revoir 
to Monsieur Naud, and Madame Huot and the air- 
men, I could still step dry-eyed into Kenny's 
speed-boat, in which he was to take me to Point 
Bleue. There other farewells awaited. 

And these were doubtless final. Mr. Hamil- 
ton and Monsieur Tessier and Monsieur Kurt- 
ness had all been good to me, and none of them 
letter-writing men. And there was Matamek, 
well-spring of the past, destined for what future 
channels! It is hard to go through the trials of 
fatigue and flies, through the intimacies of woods- 
travel and camp-fires with any fellow and not 

251 



252 THE LAURENTIANS 

acquire some affection for him. He may be stub- 
born in his practices, and without much tact in 
preferring his own views ; but if he be not an ab- 
solute ninny or a thorough hog, the very equahty 
of the disasters undergone by him and you will 
make a basis of mutuality of respect and liking. 

So with Matamek, although of another race, 
alien thoughts, and a strange livelihood. I liked 
him for his sense of humor, his quick eye for cir- 
cumstance or beauty, and a ready response to the 
esteem in which I held him. I was on the eve of 
friendship with him, at the point where we could 
set aside the outer politenesses and indulge in that 
conflict of argument, the exchange of knowledge, 
the pleasures of explanation which the tyranny of 
strangeness between two denies. In another 
month he would be away north again, and all the 
special-delivery stamps in the post-ofifice would 
never find him, or profit if they could. 

But the red Fates had one more kindness in 
their quiver for Matamek to tender me. The 
boy saw us landing and came with the news: 
''Mr. Speck is here. I have told him of you." 
And almost as eagerly as if we were trailing a 
moose, he led me along the beach to the tent of an 
old Indian, with whom was sitting Frank G. Speck, 
the Algonquin authority. The fact of the the- 
ness of his authority I did not know then, nor even 
that he had made for himself a lifelong engage- 



STATOMISKATIN-OU 263 

ment with those Northern tribes, the least 
changed, the most primitive of all red-bloods to- 
day. But the quick-motioned, low-voiced man, 
whose handshake was a welcome in itself, im- 
mediately won my confidence and made simplic- 
ity my platform. In a minute we were discuss- 
ing our immediate interests. 

"Have you seen one of those?" he asked, put- 
ting a pack-strap-like belt of tanned moose- 
skin in my hand. "It 's the Montagnais nima- 
ban, their hunting charm. It 's rather rare to 
find such a good specimen. I Ve had a lucky 
day." 

The wide part was bound on the upper edge 
with a red silk ribbon, on the lower with a green. 
There was a symbolical scene of hunter, canoe, a 
bear and trees, embroidered in red, yellow and 
light-blue silks. 

"This magical object," said Mr. Speck, "is 
worn by the hunter who has a revelation about 
getting game. When he gets his game true to 
the revelation, he wraps it in this strap and brings 
it home. The nimaban is also a means of com- 
municating with the shades of the animal, and a 
lot more which hasn't been ascertained yet. 
Napani here has one which he used in a hunt 
that successfully averted a famine. When the 
animals were killed he put his nimaban on his 
head, dancing around, singing, rejoicing for his 



254 THE LAURENTIANS 

luck, and as a recompense to the spirit of the 
game. He was just telling me the story." 

*'Ask my uncle to tell the story of Gluskap and 
the wind-bird," said Matamek. 

''Do ask him," I begged, and then remembered 
that there was no time. 

Of all things to do in an Indian tent, when about 
to be told an old racial legend, by a veteran hunter, 
I now did the most preposterous thing of all — 
looked at my watch. The train was due in twenty 
minutes. Kind Monsieur Naud had made all ar- 
rangements for my next adventure on the He 
d'Alma. Guides were hired. And now the train 
was almost due. A kinder fate would have with- 
held Mr. Speck entirely from my acquaintance, or 
else derailed the train. This suspense between 
temptation and the time-table was hard. 

"I will interpret, if you like," volunteered 
Mr. Speck; "it is an interesting tale, common with 
variations among all the Algonquin tribes. I 
have heard Newell Lion tell it at Oldtown, 
Maine. In fact he has told me the whole trick- 
ster cycle from the Penobscot, among whom this 
legend doubtless originated." 

"You will not miss the train," said Matamek; 
"I will watch." 

So, with one ear open to the past, and one 
pricked toward the future, I sat in the soft air 
from Lake St. John by Napani's tent door and 



STATOMISKATIN-OU 255 

heard this tale of Gluskap, the shaman ; the ripple 
and flow of the Indian tongue being untangled 
into English by Mr. Speck: 

"Then Gluskap overturned a rocky point, and 
made of it a canoe for himself. Then he went 
duck-hunting in his hollow stone canoe. He 
could not kill any birds, as the wind blew so hard 
that he could hardly paddle about. At last he 
suddenly grew angry, thinking, ' What causes such 
continuous winds?' 

"Then Gluskap said, 'Grandma, I am going to 
search for the place where the wind comes from.' 

" 'It is very far,' said his grandmother. 

" 'No matter how far away it is,' said he, 'I 
am going to find out who causes it. Soon I shall 
return. ' 

"He went away, going against the wind, it 
growing stronger as he went. On the seventh 
day he could hardly walk, it was so strong. It 
blew otf all his hair. Then he saw a great magic 
bird slowly waving its wings, making the wind. 
Then, when he reached the place with difficulty, 
he said, 'Grandfather, could n't you possibly make 
stronger wind"?' 

" 'Grandchild, that 's the best I can do,' said 
the big bird. 

"Then Gluskap said, 'If you could possibly sit 
higher up, far over there on the hill on the peak, 
you would make it stronger.' 



256 THE LAURENTIANS 

'* 'No, grandson, I could not,' said he. *I have 
sat here since the beginning of things.' 

'^ 'I will help you, Grandfather,' said Gluskap. 

<< 'Very well,' said the bird; 'if you will help 
me, I will go, because I want all who face me to 
have the benefit of my wind.' 

''Then Gluskap took the big bird on his back, 
carried him to a high ledge and there dropped him 
accidentally, so that he suddenly broke his wing. 
Then Gluskap left and went home. 

" 'Now,' said he, 'I shall have good duck-hunt- 
ing. We shall always have a calm.' Then he 
went out paddling. Surely it was calm. The 
water grew so thick with scum that he could 
hardly paddle. Said he, 'I think I will go there 
again where the wind is. It is always too calm.' 
Then he went where the great bird was. The bird 
did not know him now when he arrived, because 
Gluskap 's hair had already grown out again. 

" 'What has always caused so much calm, 
Grandfather 1 ' asked Gluskap of the big bird. 

" 'Simply that an old bald-headed man came 
here and wanted stronger wind; and I told him 
that I could not manage it, that it was all that I 
could do ; and he told me that he would carry me 
on to a higher place. Then, sure enough, he 
carried me; and he dropped me and broke my 
wing. Now I have only one wing.' 



STATOMISKATIN-OU 257 

' ' Then said Gluskap, ' Grandfather, I will carry 
you back again where you sat, and will also heal 
you.' 

'* '0 grandchild,' said the bird, 'I should re- 
joice so much if you would. I am already tired 
of lying here.' 

"Then Gluskap carried him, and put him back 
where he wanted to sit, and healed his wing. 
'Now, Grandfather, try your wing.' 

''And the bird tried his wing, and it was healed. 
Gluskap was blown over. The bird was very 
glad. 'How much you have pleased me, grand- 
child!' 

" 'Now, Grandfather,' said Gluskap, 'here- 
after, do not use your wings too steadily, be- 
cause our descendants cannot hunt for their liv- 
ing when there are such continuous winds. When 
you move your wings, our descendants cannot 
paddle or hunt ducks on the water. Now, if 
possible, wave your wings a day or for two days, 
then rest a day, so that our descendants can hunt 
ducks on the ocean.' 

** 'You speak the truth. I guess, grand- 
son . . .' " 

"The train is arriving around the corner," in- 
terposed Matamek. 

"I am just done," said Napani: 

" 'I guess, grandson, there was too much wind. 



258 THE LAURENTIANS 

From now on there shall not be such strenuous 
wind.' Then Gluskap went home; and when he 
arrived, his grandmother rejoiced." 

The old hunter stopped ; and, likewise, the train. 
I made my hurried thanks. ^'Statomiskatin-ou" 
replied the old man with a good deal of dignity. 

"Good health to you, he says, and I add, good 
luck," cried Mr. Speck after me. 

"Watch out as you go by Mistassini, old Mata- 
mek, and don't let the Trappists get you," I cried. 

"I will watch. Good health, friend." 

The train gave one of its congenital jerks and 
started. A curve devoured the white buildings 
of the post, hid the seventeenth century, and be- 
gan to obscure the tents of the primeval people 
on the beach. But there still stood, where we had 
shaken hands, the figure of the Indian boy, 
stohd, gazing, dwindling into nothing. 



CHAPTER XVII 

ST. JOSEPH d'aLMA THE HOSPITABLE 

IN one sublime-ridiculous step I had descended 
from the battlements of beauty and camara- 
derie into a moat of tobacco-spittle, the car being 
in substantially its usual condition. My friends 
were receding into the past, while I must needs 
go on; for time and the Laurentides were wait- 
ing. The train advanced, furlong by furlong. 
At least I suppose it advanced; I had no heart to 
notice, and one has to watch Government-run 
trains carefully to tell. I had no heart to think 
about the beauties I was passing ; the really lovely 
buttercups and irises in the fields were all prim- 
roses to me and nothing more. And the falls of 
the Metabouchouan weren't even that, though 
doubtless very fine before being sawmilled. 

So, running true to my usual form, my spirits 
had sunk from the boiling-point of enthusiasm 
there on the beach at Pointe Bleue to within a 
degree or so of zero as we reached Hebertville. 
We read in history that the beginnings of this 
place furent lents et penibles, were slow and 

259 



260 THE LAURENTIANS 

painful — ^like the train's. I lugged my duffle- 
bag off, and stared around hoping to see La 
Grande Decharge, the rapids of which I was ex- 
pecting to shoot. Instead on every side I saw 
clover meadows and fields of grain, flat to the 
horizon like the steppes of Siberia. It was then 
that I reached zero. 

A nice-looking boy touched his hat. *'Is this 
Monsieur Maurice, sir?" I admitted it. ''David 
Neron sent me for you, sir." David Neron was 
one of the guides whom Naud the Good had en- 
gaged for the rapid-shooting. ''Have you bag- 
gage, sir?" 

The lad's name was John Tremblay, which I 
quickly changed to Jehu Tremblay ; for no sooner 
had I been enticed into his Ford than he sprang 
in beside, and, like an antelope who thinks she 
hears a griffin at her heels, we were off. Mistake 
not the simile. An antelope, once under way, 
does not bound along, but rather seems to fly 
parallel to the surface of the ground, like an even- 
tempered bolt of lightning. So we. The Ford 
whirred across the equable meadow-road in a 
manner its inventor may have dreamed of, but 
possibly never realized in practice. Meanwhile 
Jehu gossiped. If the good die young, one might 
suppose that good chauffeurs w^ould die very 
young. More than once I guessed that our time 



ST. JOSEPH D'ALMA 261 

had come. But that was because I was foolish 
enough to imagine myself at the wheel. John 
Tremblay leaped (I think) the chickens and chil- 
dren in the road as we entered St. Joseph d' Alma 
and pulled me up before La Maison Tremblay, 
his uncle 's inn, with the same flourish with which 
I can picture Wilhelm II arriving at the field of 
the Marne in a twin six. 

David Neron and Henri LeBel, engaged as bow 
paddle for the perilous descent, were waiting. 
In French, which they tempered to my auditory 
abilities, they put themselves at my service, ex- 
plained the preparations we had better make, 
designated the proper flies for ouananiche (those 
magic fish which haunt La Grande Decharge), 
and asked if I objected to their attending early 
mass on the morrow. Since it is quite possible 
to get drowned in the rapids, I thought I ought 
not to interpose between them and hopes of a 
happy eternity. They left to buy the provisions. 

And now Fate plucked my sleeve, and I turned 
to see a young man, tall, well-built, dark-haired, 
with eyes that spoke only of good nature, stand- 
ing by a big McLaughlin-Buick. 

**I hear you are going to shoot the rapids," he 
said. 

I nodded. 

"Then do you want a guide?" 



262 THE LAURENTIANS 

''I have two, malheureusement." 

''That is all right, then, though for another 
time my father is good." 

We had quite a talk there on the steps of the 
inn, surrounded by a large and increasing group 
of St. Joseph d'Almians, wide-eyed at the sight 
of a stranger; and my spirits rose momentarily. 
Again I found myself encharmed in habitant-land. 
Not a soul in the village spoke a word of English ; 
not a soul seemed troubled by avarice, or the 
passage of time. And every one was bound to 
entertain me, that curious-minded man who liked 
to go somewhere instead of living (^e reposer) 
peacefully in one spot. Every one was bound and 
bent on it that I should be treated like a king. 
The first thing that every self-respecting king 
needs is, of course, an audience; so three-deep 
they listened to the diary of my adventures with- 
out a titter, though the mangled idioms of their 
tongue lay about in heaps. Little knowing and 
little-known they lived there by their impetuous 
river, La Petite Decharge du Lac St. Jean, and 
cultivated virtue and their fields. As London 
never could, they took me in; and the prince of 
the place seemed to be the young fellow who had 
taken my entertainment upon himself. His name 
was FranQois Tremblay. 

''Perhaps," said Frangois," you would like to 



ST. JOSEPH D'ALMA 263 

see one of the rapids down which you go to-mor- 
row. ' ' 

Francois was brother to Jehu Tremblay, but, I 
am thanlvful to say, his ambitions lay otherwheres 
than in mile-a-minute travel. From the moment 
I stepped into his car there began a twenty-four 
hour period, so far above most days in novelty, 
in satisfaction, in beauty, in happiness even, that 
I not only shall never forget it, but always, in the 
remembrance of it, shall have a thrill of joy. 
The white eternal moments of life are those born 
in the fire of spirit-suffering, when the soul is 
torn from one by hf e-rending music, when person- 
ality writhes in growing pains, or when love wakes 
one from a too comfortable dream. These are the 
moments that raise life to views possible only 
from Calvary, moments of agony, yet so beauti- 
ful one would not have them taken. And I can- 
not pretend that the He d'Alma offered such. 
But to see a fine soul lying quietly in someone's 
eyes, and to see beauty blossom and glow and 
pass with an understanding friend at hand ; these 
are to stamp a day remarkable. 

I wish I could have painted Frangois on thai 
evening ride. He was in his mid-twenties, yet 
one who had not tried the world. Only those who 
are innocent at heart can have a laugh like his. 
He had not yet acquired that sou-counting slant 



264 THE LAURENTIANS 

of mind that stamps the French-Canadian of 
towns with the mark of sordid coffers. He had 
sinned naturally, I must suppose, and according 
to his growth, to have kept that sparkling fresh- 
ness. For there are sins that fit each age so per- 
fectly as to be but worth the name of experience ; 
to indulge in them is to suffer no worse harm than 
from a ducking in summer. To carry them over 
to the next season; ah, there your soul gets its 
chills and fever! 

He had a charitable mind, a warm heart, and a 
spirit that felt the soft hand of beauty laid upon 
it ; and when we came to the brink of our destina- 
tion, the high banks of La Grande Decharge, and 
a sudden glory burned upon our sight, it silenced 
him, as it should have silenced any man with feel- 
ings mature enough to be daunted by beauty. 

If I find it impossible to make Francois visible 
how useless the effort to portray that scene! 
Yet how inevitable the effort ! For beauty burns 
to be communicated as surely as an inland dwel- 
ler burns to write home about his first glimpse of 
the sea. The boy and I stood on a grassy ledge 
looking up a narrow avenue of light into a sunset 
sky, framed in the fir-gloom of retreating hills. 
Down this bright avenue poured a river, impet- 
uous, tormented, leaping. Like a mad racing herd 
of colts it flung itself down the river-bed ; and the 
shaking of manes, the thunder of hoofs, the spray 



ST. JOSEPH D'ALMA 265 

of dust, the wild rush ever on and on, whelmed 
eye and ear. 

Opposite reared a wall of forest, darkening 
momentarily; behind us the sunlight rose from 
the earth, passed up the motionless firs, gilded 
their still spires, and departed on. that way where 
footfall is never heard. The west was one deep 
well of hght, clear and soft, and already the far 
rapids, heads-down in the dusk, leaped and played 
with mane-flashings as if they were being ridden 
barebacked by the sons of Pan. 

And when my sight had wandered from the 
thrush-haunted woods ascending the heights, and 
had looked down into the swirl of waters, it turned 
again to that canary-yellow west, where the 
Creator was locking up the homestead of the 
hours. There, suddenly, a dramatic thing oc- 
curred. God drew the bolt on day's door, in the 
shape of a tongue of cloud that had crossed the 
ravine, and, crossing had turned to flame. 

And while I was stilled to rapture by the sight, 
I felt a pressure on my arm — Frangois pointing 
in wonder to the east, where I saw, through the 
uncurtained window of the night, the full moon 
hanging yellow-pale. 

On such moments, as on stepping-stones, one 
quickly crosses the strangeness that separates 
two; and as Francois drove me home he told me 
of the fancies that lay near his heart. ''Encore 



266 THE LAURENTIANS 

un garQon," lie had said earlier, but now lie told 
of the girl he was going to marry. These young 
fellows, for all that there is nothing much to do 
in the way of social excitement, whose tempera- 
ment does not lead them to the sports, and whose 
Celtic blood is hospitable to the affections, these 
handsome, healthy habitants much to my sur- 
prise, marry comparatively late. Many and 
many a time I came across very eligible men of 
thirty still sitting on the paternal porch. 
Twenty-five is about the age when the potential 
groom begins to look about him seriously. If he 
does not, the priest does for him. "Telesphore," 
the holy man will say, ' ' Telesphore, is it not time 
that thou art setting up a home for thyself? 
Hast thou seen Marie Hebert lately?" And the 
youth responds, '*No, Father, but I shall take 
pains to see her.'^ And it very often happens 
that the Marie Hebert in question is the right 
one for Telesphore. The priest is a good pastor, 
and tends his lambs with all the assiduity recom- 
mended by the New Testament. 

''What 's the matter with the girls?" I said. 

Frangois shrugged his shoulders and sang me 
about two dozen verses, of which I took down a 
few. The girl says : 

Je voudrais bien me marier, 

Je voudrais bien me marier, 

Mais y ai grand' peur de me tromper, 



ST. JOSEPH D'ALMA 267 

Mais y ai grand' peur de me tromper: 
lis sont si mallionnetes, 
]\Ia lurou ma lunette; 
lis sont si malhonnetes 
Ma luron, ma lure. 

^Je ne veux pas d' un habitant. 
II faut toujours aller au champ 

Et rouler la charette. 

Ma luron, ma lunette. . . . 

Je ne veux pas d' un laboreux. 
II faut toujours toucher les boeufs 
Et manier la curette. , . . 

Je ne veux pas d' un colporteur. 
Rarement ils se font honneur 
En portant la cassette. . . . 

Je ne veux pas d' un avocat, 
Car ils aiment trop des ducats, 
lis trompent les fillettes. . . . 

*'Vous voyez," said FranQois with his con- 
tagious laugh. 

''But just the same one girl has wished Fran- 
Qois Tremblay." 

"But I have a car," he flashed back. 

Was it possible that the habitant fille had taken 
the rest of the world's standard of eligibility? 

"Would you like to hear my father play the 
violin!" asked Frangois. 

His father's house was perched above the 
river, La Petite Decharge, and as we entered in 



268 THE LAURENTIANS 

the twilight I heard the violin, never expecting 
the sight that greeted me — the stalwart man re- 
clining on a lounge, a little child by him, resting 
its entranced head on his shoulder, while he 
played his fiddle, propped on his breast. And of 
course he was smoking his black pipe all the 
while. 

Now FranQois danced to his father's jig, an 
inimitable tune, lively enough to make the chairs 
and table follow. One by one the daughters, 
carrying children, came in, their neighbors fol- 
lowing. They brought out some home-made 
wine and cakes, and it was an evening of com- 
munal cheer. I had been known to these people 
about four hours. 

I smiled, as I rode home in the moonlight with 
FranQois, with the satisfaction of one who has 
found entrance to a people at last. I recalled 
those fruitless hours with Government officials. 
Frangois had done more for his people in my 
mind than all the frock-coats in Quebec. In the 
fields, in the bush, in their village life the ancient 
blood of Brittany still flows warm and gay and 
generous. As I lay in my bed, in the little eaves 
room above the river, the romance of the cour- 
eurs deshois, the voyageurs, the chantiers welled 
up from the dark. The noise of the distant river, 
the groves of fir still somber in the moonlight, 
the gaiety and charm of the evening blended with 



ST. JOSEPH D'ALMA 269 

the pictures from history's page in my sleepy 
mind. English-speaking souls seemed far away. 
Near at hand, legend peered around every corner. 
I knew the French-Canadian character now and 
was satisfied. Here was still New France, em- 
bodied in the solidity and smiling courtesies of 
Francois and his people. I dropped asleep to 
the refrain of one of their love-songs which they 
had sung on the porch there in the moonlight : 

I' y a longtemps que je t' aime; 
Jamais je ne t' oubHerai ! 



CHAPTER XVIII 

LA GEANDE DECHABGE 

WHILE the morning was still fresh with 
night I went to church with my husky 
guides, Neron and LeBel. As I sat in the back 
pew, seeing, through the gloom, the sleepy can- 
dles and the wax-faced virgins vegetating in the 
mumbling quiet of the friendly ceremony, I felt 
much hke one of those ancient crusaders starting 
to the wars. Was not the day confronted with 
adventure and were we not to run the gauntlet 
of sudden death? To be sure death made a 
picture of but frail physique against the broad- 
shouldered sturdiness of those two French-Can- 
adians. Yet the white horses of the Cervais rap- 
ids had trampled the life out of men. I thought 
how death is man's boldest fancy, the dragon 
which God lets us conjure up for life's twilight- 
time, so that, like children, we may run in well- 
imagined terror through the haunted dark. Yet, 
it was death, the companion-maker, that made me 
the respecter of my guides. Who knows what 
sobrieties might have escaped me had we but been 
going a-wild-strawberrying ! 

270 



LA GRANDE DECHARGE 271 

Alas, while matters of the other world should 
have engaged me, I was still intent on those of 
this, and my facile ear was filled, not with the 
Latin of the purling priest, but with the subdued 
roar of those rapids which FranQois had shown 
me. ''The water here is sixty feet deep,^' he had 
said, ''and I 've seen it suck down a log forty 
feet long, not to appear again." "What chance 
then has an eighteen-foot canoe," thought I, but 
held my tongue. "Do^vn there is la Chute au Vi- 
able , the De\'iPs Falls." I looked at the ghostly 
death-dance of the waters and the reason for the 
name seemed awfully plain. And as these 
memories made inroads on my imagination, I be- 
gan to think that coming to church was one more 
thoughtfulness of Providence. Heaven knows 
what other speculations I might have come upon 
had not the priest abridged his sermon and dis- 
missed us into the sanative sunshine. Provi- 
dence had at least picked the most beautiful of 
all days for my demise, 

Jehu Tremblay, Ford and food awaited us. 
Francois said good-by with promises of unre- 
strained letter-writings (but no word from the 
young dog yet, which is the sum of my experience 
in that land, where no precedent for promise-keep- 
ing has ever been recorded), and then over the 
hills to the far away. The sun gleamed from ser- 
aphic skies, the firs sent columns of incense unto 



272 THE LAURENTIANS 

heaven, and my spirits were in a veritable hub- 
bub of anticipation. As an additional satisfac- 
tion, I found that I was traveling with men much 
above the ordinary. 

David Neron, sturdy as a sea-captain on his 
feet, fairly short, very wiry, and about fifty years 
old, had made shooting La Grande Decharge his 
special activity. What he said came from the 
springs of experience in well-measured words. 
Caution was his chief tenet, but while gliding 
down the Devil's esplanade caution and a good 
paddle are two highly comforting things. Quiet 
of speech, easy of manner, with just a hint of 
Celtic twinkle in his gray eyes, Neron looked, es- 
pecially, in his galluses and felt hat, the guide par 
excellence. And I heartily advise any one com- 
mitting themselves to this trip to write ahead to 
David Neron, St. Joseph d' Alma, P. Q., to organ- 
ize the party. 

Henri LeBel made the team-work perfect. 
Thirty years old, a six-footer, ox-strong, and with 
an inextinguishable good humor, he had still a 
moderate appetite, and the instinctive polite- 
nesses of the French^Canadian, with none of the 
vices of excellence that I could discover — I mean 
vanity of contumacious leadership. Henri LeBel 
completed the picture. Thus was I perfectly 
equipped with men, with weather, and with a fi.eld 
of adventure. Beauty, excitement, camaraderie, 



LA GRANDE DECHARGE 273 

and an outcome just sufficiently uncertain to add 
the fillip of good venture — was ever chap so lucky? 
We unbushed our canoe from its cache and had 
a pipe over it. Before me spread the widened 
waters of La Grande Decharge about to make 
their first plunge. I suppose you must have a 
pipeful of information, now: 

La Grande Decharge — and I refuse to call it 
the Grand Discharge, which sounds like a strike- 
retaliation scheme in a locomotive-works — ^La 
Grande Decharge is the outlet to Lake St. John. 
Through this rocky channel the waters of a wilder- 
ness, poured by forty rivers into the large flat 
lake, rush with an incredible fierceness toward 
the sea. The drop in twenty miles is twice the 
height of Niagara; then, for twenty miles again, 
comparative quietness reigns, and finally a short 
series of rapids brings one to Chicoutimi, where 
the name Saguenay is applied to the continuing 
waters. For sixty miles more the river flows be- 
tween world-famous cliffs to the St. Lawrence. 
It is safe to say that, scenically, no river of its 
length in the world is so crowded with superlative 
wonders. It is very narrow, yet drains tens of 
thousands of square miles of wilderness. It af- 
fords probably the wildest rapids that can be 
run anywhere, through scenes of variable splen- 
dor. It is the most favored home of the gamest 
trout there is. And after a youth of prodigal 



274 THE LAURENTIANS 

fervor, like Shakspere's Prince, it settles down 
to the utmost magnificence, and bears one on a 
kingly tide to the most charming and historic 
spot in Canada. What a gamut ! What a range 
of life: wilderness youth, the ecstacy of adoles- 
cence, a sobering pastoral middle age with a touch 
of human-kind, then a march through the mys- 
teries of a deeper experience, a last quiet touch 
of beauty, and an indistinguishable merging with 
the long-sought end! Such the geography of it 
— now for the life! 

At Lake St. John the out-rushing water is di- 
vided by the He d ' Alma, a triangle with a three- 
mile base, and ten-mile sides. The smaller river, 
Le Petite Decharge, does not amount to much; 
by far the greater volume, pouring over a fall, 
rushing through a rapid called Joseph Lessourds 
— the natives have names for all the major rapids 
— and into a large basin, a third of a mile across. 
It was by the shore of this basin that I put to- 
gether my fishing-rod, Neron selected two flies, 
and, while they were arranging our food and 
dufiie in the canoe, I made a preliminary cast for 
that fanciful fish, the ouananiche. 

Now, any one who really wants to know about 
the ouananiche can hunt up a book about it, writ- 
ten by Mr. E. T. D. Chambers, the authority. 
The book, published by Harpers' in the nineties, 
is nearly as rare as the fish. It is entitled ''The 



LA GRANDE DECHARGE 275 

Onananiclio and Its Canadian Environment," 
and far exceeds in interest, and I should judge 
veracity, any other book I ever read about fish- 
ing. Why the Government, for whom Mr. Cham- 
bers indef atigably labors in the service of its fish- 
eries, has not seen that this work is perpetuated 
and sent broadcast, is but another one of those 
mysteries to me, which, for lack of printable ad- 
jectives, I can only call governmental. Mr. Cham- 
bers lent me his only copy, since I could not find 
one, and I acknowledge my indebtedness right 
here by saying that any statement in this chapter 
that sounds at all scientific has probably been ei- 
ther absorbed or else lifted bodily from Chambers. 
To begin with, there are twenty-eight different 
spellings of the creature's name; ' ' ouananiche" 
— which is pronounced whon-na-nishe — being 
Mr. Chamber's predilection. To go on with, 
he advises the angler to use a salmon fly on a No. 
3 or 4 hook, with a Jock Scott, Silver Doctor, Dur- 
ham Ranger, Professor, Queen of 'the Water, 
Brown Hackle, and Coachman, named in order 
of efficacy. And to end with, despite all this infor- 
mation, not a single ouan rose from the foam- 
heads that floated slowly along the shore. I 
could not wonder at this, because imbedded in the 
foam were innumerable flies of every size and 
color, and it seemed to me that a ouananiche with 
the least hesitation, on account of indigestion 



276 THE LAURENTIANS 

would have quit eating about twenty minutes after 
sun-up. But I experienced a sinking of the heart. 
Was this to be a repetition of Lake Edward? 
There the rosy-minded Rowleys had commented 
on the ill-luck which had marked me as the singu- 
lar exception among all past fishermen, and 
probably among all to come, when I failed 
to relieve their lake of its congestion of ten- 
pound trout. Was this the one week that ouan- 
aniche could not be got from La Grande Decharge ? 
And wherefore? Could it be possible that fish- 
catching automatically stopped in the regions that 
I happened to pass through? Chambers, I re- 
called, had said something about the devastating 
effect of the east wind ; but there was no wind. A 
sigh lifted from my diaphragm, rose through my 
bronchial tubes, and joined the larger freedom 
outside. Neron pushed off from shore. For the 
first time I realized that his name rhymed with 
Charon, and that this stream might be my Styx. 
And I had forgotten to bring my bottle of Lethe ! 
But such sunlight never shone on Styx, nor on 
many other streams where I have had the luck to 
voyage. The sky was innocent of cloud or haze, 
and rose from encircling seas of light into a pure 
serene, as clear as thought. We skirted the shore 
for a while, casting for those fly-proof fish, until 
the roar of Le Gros Mer, the first rapid, sounded 
hollowly from below, and we made ready to pen- 



LA GRANDE DECHARGE 277 

etrate its barrage of foam. LeBel was bow pad- 
dle. His task was to indicate the nuances of rock 
and swirl in the main route which Neron knew. 
By a jab of the paddle now, a pull now, and now 
a push he accomplished what Captain Neron 
wished, and uttered vocally in quick and, to me, 
unintelligible remarks. In threading doom, stern 
paddle has the final say, though acting often on 
the bow paddle's advice. Bow is eyes, stern is 
strength, and ultimate responsibility. And to 
watch Neron, on his knees now, manipulating his 
short paddle, three furious strokes, a hold, a back 
swing, an instantaneous shift to the other side, 
keeping himself in perfect equilibrium, in the last 
degree alert, feline, yet steel-like, to watch his 
face reflect the swift decisions of his mind, was to 
know that disaster was being warded otf by a very 
nice parrying of the blade. It was to know that 
the swirhng waters were to be taken seriously. 
Part of the time I faced forward, part of the 
time looked back. And I must say that I read 
more responsibility in Neron 's countenance than 
in the undramatic appearance of the river. Now 
on one side, now on the other, little waves would 
curl, currents dive beneath the surface, whirls put 
out their hands for our bow; but the sensation 
was scarcely what I had expected. I had rather 
anticipated dashing down stupendous tongues of 
water (as one sees them displayed on the calen- 



278 THE LAURENTIANS 

dars of the Hudson's Bay Co.), dashing down 
these smooth tongnes and then riding (somehow) 
over the curling waves at the bottom, and so on to 
the next plunge. I had hoped that the speed 
would exceed what is usually practicable in 
automobiles. I had supposed that the angry 
waves curled over one's bow, and that we dodged 
concisely between fanged rocks to escape them. 
For some reason I had looked forward to enjoy- 
ing a sensation that combined the smoothness of 
ski-running with the exhilaration of being tossed 
in a blanket. And all in a perfervid silence with 
nerves on edge, and the whole thing carried 
through by an immense act of moral courage. 

So, when we had done with the Gros Mer, no 
water shipped, no hves lost, so smoothly that I 
could have threaded a needle — ^well, a knitting- 
needle, then — I must say I rated rapid-shooting 
with ouananiche-^fishing. Was it for this I had 
laid out fifty-dollars — the price that these rapids- 
specialists charged for the trip to Chicoutimi? 

"Shall I shoot him?" asked LeBel, interrupting 
my sad little reverie. He was some sort of eagle 
hovering above us, probably with his nest on the 
neighboring cliffs. Barring some partridges, 
that bird was the only wild life we observed dur- 
ing the day. 

Nature has arranged the rapids of La Grande 
Decharge (to avoid having them transposed hj 



LA GRANDE DECHARGE 279 

literary artists), in climactic order; the farther, 
the worse. And now we were approaching Les 
Cedres, who were making noises much more like 
able-bodied rapids. I could see enough white 
water to please even my anticipation, and my men 
pulled up along a huge rock to reconnoiter. The 
water was high still, despite the drought, and 
glittered in the approaching noon. Down we 
crept, Neron with great skill keeping the craft 
under exquisite control; so much so that just as I 
had taken a deep breath of pleasure we shot to 
shore. ^'C'est trop," he shouted to LeBel, mean- 
ing that it was too dangerous in such a flood. And 
so we portaged around the worst spot. 

Still much rapid remained, and I experienced 
more and more of the conventional sensations. 
I suppose the stream was running at fifteen miles 
an hour, maybe faster ; rocks sat beneath the sur- 
face, with the water beguilingly unbroken over 
them. Gigantic flattened whirlpools swayed 
hither and away, and eddies boiled. Occasion- 
ally the whole back of the river would rise as if 
some gigantic rhinoceros were about to emerge, 
and now I began to realize the danger. It lay 
not in the speed of the stream, nor even in the 
rocks nor waves, but rather in these enormous 
spasms of the under water, the vast shiftings of 
surface, and the swirl of things. As our canoe 
fled down the sloping current, running at right 



280 THE LAURENTIANS 

angles often to the apparent channel, a huge back- 
eddy would grab the bow, LeBel and Neron would 
dig into the water like racers, shouting comments 
on the direction to be taken. Pulls, slashes, push- 
ings, back-holdings, and we would scoot half-way 
across the river, swerve around a bowlder. 
Looking back I would see that we had escaped a 
a tremendous up-sweep of the current. Even ex- 
perienced canoe-men cannot hope to navigate this 
river unless one of them be somewhat acquainted 
with it and willing to portage where the delights, 
though violent, promise violent ends. 

We lunched in a comely nook of sweet-smell- 
ing firs and clean old granite; and the name of 
L' He Maligne now fell upon my ears. At 
L' He Maligne I was promised ouananiche and a 
real sensation. I reposed like one of the younger 
gods in Olympus 's shade and listened to the event 
ahead of us, named b^ some poet L' He Maligne. 
Adventure has two moments of suffusing dehght: 
that time when the summit of the event shines 
glitteringly ahead and one sets forward to it with 
hopes, warmed with conscious courage ; the other 
when it is well past, and you see it in the after- 
glow of a deed well done. Or, as Browning has 
Paracelsus so beautifully say it: 

Are there not, Festus, are there not, dear Mical, 
Two points in the adventure of the diver: 



LA GRANDE DECHARGE 281 

One — when, a beggar, he prepares to plunge? 
One — when, a prince, he rises with his pearl?" 

At two o^clock we plunged. 

L' He Maligne is a mile-long ridge of spruce- 
crowded rock that cuts the river like a granite 
quarter-moon. Down each side of it the waters 
race in uninterrupted rapids of great power. 
The banks of the mainland rise even steeper than 
this dorsal fin, *\^hich is the island. Consequently 
men infected with the desire to run La Grande 
Decharge have to carry the canoe from one tip 
of the moon to the other. And to do this requires 
a landing, which brushes Ulysses's adventure 
with Scylla and Charybdis for excitement. The 
tip of the moon-island is incurved a trifle, and the 
huge flow of water from the rapids above the is- 
land makes, in this basin, a maelstrom that would 
have delighted Poe. To land, your men must halt 
the canoe above this whirl until it is filling up — 
otherwise, if one enters it while the down-suction 
is taking place the canoe will be caught as by 
two hands and overturned. Then, having chosen 
the moment when the surface of the whirlpool is 
nearest level, the game is to drive across it at 
fullest speed, else the great whirl takes one out 
into the rapids and you are drowned in Scylla, 
or swept about the tip of the island into Charyb- 
dis, where you are drowned sooner. Of course 
if you upset in the whirl you are sucked down 



282 THE LAURENTIANS 

and drowned at once. But there is this — if you do 
get to the island you have the best ouananiche- 
fishing in the world. 

So, in the still brightness of the windless river 
reaches, we swept down upon our great moment. 
I saw ahead of me the sterile tip of the moon-is- 
land, backgrounded with firs, saw the gaunt canon 
down which the river plunged in flashes of silver 
and blue. Neron's face was a study. Napoleon 
could not have scrutinized his first battle more 
sharply. 

''Serieusement,'' he cried suddenly, and like 
a scared sheldrake flew do^^mstream. I saw the 
heads of the twin rapids, gaping, white-fanged, 
down either of whose throats destruction gleamed. 

' ' Vite, ' ' cried Neron. He was working grimly, 
the veins in his forehead standing out. We had 
entered the whirlpool. With brawny digs of the 
paddle, he escaped the periphery, crossed the cen- 
ter. And now, with the shore for comparison I 
could measure the swiftness of the flow Mid- 
stream. 

'^Encore," shouted Neron this time trium- 
phantly. The two almost lifted the craft from 
the water in three or four great strokes. We 
glided by a shore-rock, by another. LeBel leaped 
out in the water. For a slim shaved second I 
wondered if Neron could keep the stern from 
those terrific rapids-claws. And then it was over. 



LA GRANDE DECHARGE 288 

I stood, not trembling- exactly, but with a curi- 
ous elation, on the tip of that isolate crescent isle, 
and looked at the sun-path down which we had 
run. He Maligne, you are well named. On both 
sides the demons of ill-luck made spectral noises 
that rose above the deep roar of the crashing tor- 
rents. Neron touched my arm to call my atten- 
tion to the whirl which had tried to hai^vest us 
into its insatiable emptiness. A log was coming 
down. It was caught by those invisible arms, up- 
ended and sucked down as if by some hideous 
living force that must be fed. Truly the ouanan- 
iche are carefully guarded. 

On a cloudy autumn day I think running the 
rapids would be a ghastly pleasure. But on that 
glorious crest of the sun-drenched summer the 
roar, the sense of speed, the passion of light had 
got into our blood and fired us with excitement. 
Even the cool grasses burned with hght. And as 
I put together my rod again I knew that the wild 
gods would be with me. They could not fail in 
such a place, at such a time. I had reached their 
most highly fortified citadel. The three of us 
climbed along the rocks for a few hundred yards. 
Neron pointed to a ledge against which the quick- 
ened waters beat, and I cast into the turmoil. 

'*It is better that joy should be spread over all 
the day in the form of strength, than that it 
should be concentrated into ecstacies full of dan- 



284 THE LAURENTIANS 

ger and followed by reactions/' And of course 
we know that Emerson is usually right. But he 
was talking of indoor joys. On that day of days 
I was to pass from ecstasy to ecstasy, some of 
them full of danger, and the reaction did not 
come. I think I was lifted permanently to a 
higher level. Certainly I bounced up a full cel- 
estial notch when the fish struck. Please visual- 
ize the stage : back of me a gray precipice of eld- 
est granite, on two boulders of which sat my men, 
alert yet almost Pan-like in their fitness to the 
scene. Before me a mad river, stampeding in a 
roar of white. Myself, whipped by the superla- 
tives of a dozen Van Dykes into a rush of desire 
to catch just one ouananiche, standing on a block 
of stone against which the breathing of the 
stream throws waves of water. The waves rise 
to my knees, clutch my ankles, ebb away, and rush 
to the grapple again. Stir, tumult, ebb and flow, 
and the certainty that somehere beneath the sur- 
face my fish is riding that hurricane of water. 
He must be an epicure of sensation, for only an 
epicure would take the trouble to saddle the 
Hghtning there. I cast just beyond an atoll of 
foam, and, by all the river-gods, I hook him. This 
with those experts sitting on the bank, is the 
finesse of elation; for I 'm no great shakes of 
an angler, and have had to bluff it. 
**C'est grosse," cried Neron, running up. 



LA GRANDE DECHARGE 285 

**Oiii, oui, c'est grosse, vraiment," adds LeBel. 
One of them dances around on one side uttering 
directions in rapid French, the other itching, I 
know, to have his hand on the acrobatic rod. I 
hear neither the directions nor yield the rod. In 
front of me a fish, with a jaw like Demosthenes 's 
and a neck like Samson's, is playing me. I don't 
flatter myself that the reverse is true. He makes 
me step lively along that ledge. I retire to es- 
cape being sucked into the next wave. He lets 
me go only so far. Either he is a prodigious fish 
or else has a prodigious nerve. I have managed 
a schoolroom full of restless brats more easily. 
"The most high-minded fish," says Dr. Van Dyke, 
"the cleanest feeder, the merriest liver, the 
loftiest leaper, and the bravest warrior of all 
creatures that swim." The man was describing 
that very fish I 'd hooked. 

And now I am getting sullen, determined. I 
wiggle less, pull a little harder. Suddenly he 
jumps clear of the water to get a look at me. 
"Pip, pip," cry Neron and LeBel together. He 
decides to drop back into the stream, although I 
don't doubt that he could swim in the air as 
well. ' ' Flesh vitalized by spirit, ' ' says Van Dyke, 
and again," he feeds on flies and his food is trans- 
formed into an aerial passion for flight"; and 
just at that critical instant I burst into laughter 
for wondering whether, by analogy, an aviator 



286 THE LAURENTIANS 

should diet on flies. To rebuke me the fish soars 
from the water again, a living silver arrow, and 
the game is on. 

It took forty minutes. More than once I had 
that fearful moment of suspense when it 
seemed that the line was empty and the rest of 
the struggle must be with — myself. But the red 
gods acquiesced to my desire, the purple-gleam- 
ing fish swam into Neron's net, and while the 
white-topped rapids roared I felt a tinge of re- 
gret with my elation. Infinitely slim and grace- 
ful, colored with all the finest tintings of his home 
in the moon-and-sun-lighted pools, he seemed in- 
deed the prince of fishes. The arc of his life was 
broken, but he had lived it like a rainbow, and no 
one minds when a rainbow passes, simply because 
it has been unimprovably beautiful. In the ouan- 
aniche, fishdom has achieved its glittering per- 
fection. 

After catching two more, the men girded them- 
selves for the contest with L' He Maligne, which 
requires more endurance than playing a sperm 
whale. For the canoe had to be carried to the 
nether end of the island, and the last party had 
gone through so long before that the trail was 
grown closed in many a place. Also it led up a 
roof -like hill-side. And it was here that I came 
to admire my men more than for the subtleties of 
rapids-shooting which I did not understand. 



• LA GRANDE DECHARGE 287 

This business I very well understood. I know 
exactly how heavy a canoe can grow; know how 
aggravating it is to pick one 's way through an 
uncut trail; how pestifying black flies can be 
upon the nape of neck. But add to weight and 
awkward bulk and flies and heat of July afternoon, 
some upright slopes set thick with under- 
brush and you have travail indeed, — that is what 
I, at the most experience-wearied, never had 
known. 

Yet that is what those men confidently tackled. 
First Neron, then LeBel, would shoulder the boat, 
push like an elephant through the jungle, guided 
by the cries and choppings of the man ahead, who, 
incidently labored under a huge pack. Not to 
be shamelessly idle, I bore my fishing-rod, two 
loaves of bread, the landing-net, and a sweater 
or two. Not realizing that the trail would peter 
out or be so long, I had not taken down my rod, 
nor furled the net, nor secured the bread against 
the ravages of brush, nor counted on the speed 
with which those giants dispatched themseves 
along. Consequently in five minutes I was in a 
worse plight than the greenest greenhorn ten- 
derfoot of a tyro, tearing along behind them, the 
net catching in one tree, the line in the opposite, 
the string that held the bread fairly snatching 
for branches as we passed, and the sweaters try- 
ing to act like Sir Walter Raleigh's cloak. I 



288 THE LAURENTIANS 

was ashamed to call, ashamed to be lost. So, ac- 
companied by the flies the others had aroused, I 
kept up; hugging the bread (now untied) to my 
vitals, stopping only to curse at the different 
catching of the lines and net, and tearing along 
breathlessly after the laden giants. Their voices 
sounded furious to me. ''Will they demand an- 
other fifty," I wondered, ''for such insane toil?" 
I pictured them irate, carmine- skinned, bellig- 
erent. When I emerged on the top of the moun- 
tain I found them sitting by the canoe, having a 
pipe, smiling. Instead of upbraiding each other 
or the wilderness or me, instead of being even 
sullen, these incorrigible Celts wiped the sweat 
and the flies from their jowls, shouldered the ca- 
noe again, and picked their way among the stumps 
and partridges do\\Ti to the water. After a fair 
day's work it seemed a triumph of physique to ac- 
complish such a carry with so little apparent fa- 
tigue; but to accomplish it in kingly spirits, that 
was a triumph of temperament. That He Mali- 
gne with rapids on either hand, and mosquitoes in 
the middle, I must repeat is well named. 

Next to having a valet and a private secretary, 
my idea of the pampered life includes two guides 
like Messieurs Neron and LeBel. In my own res- 
idential wilderness one does without them for sev- 
eral reasons. On arriving at the end of a hard 
trip I am accustomed to say, "Now, Morris, the 



LA GRANDE DECHARGE 289 

firewood ! ' ' and then I obediently cut some, how- 
ever much my canoe-worn muscles creak. So hav- 
ing arrived at the end of a perfect day it seemed 
the last desirable item of delight that the perfec- 
tion should continue into the evening. With all 
the feeling of a rajah I saw one slave smoothing a 
place to lay the balsam bed, the other assembling 
a fire and cleaning the fish. This was voluptuous 
indeed. I tried not to tilt over backward with 
conceit of myself for having conjured such a mo- 
ment into being; but instead got out my rod and 
went upstream a little way. 

Trust the ouananiche to take the conceit out of 
one if there be any in. Being now a veteran ou- 
ananicher I whipped the eddies a while confidently, 
then less confidently and finally with vanished es- 
teem. None rose where dozens must have been. 
And just as a faint choler was rising in place of 
the fish, Evening took my chin in her hands and 
raised my eyes from the vain pools to receive 
what I was failing to accept : the blessing of per- 
fect beauty. 

Upstream lay such a vista as had held Fran§ois 
and me in its spell the night before, but with this 
difference; this evening I was of it and not the 
mere spectator. My wooded isle lay midmost in 
the stream, and the cradling rapids, with silken 
hollows eight feet deep, raced at my foot. Over 
the stream, over the palisades of firs, tender eve- 



290 THE LAURENTIANS 

ning caressed the shining shoulders of the 
wood-naiads lifted from green waters, and the 
glint of their tossed hair lit the twilight reaches 
of the river. The intoxication of motion, of the 
colored hour, of the remote spot filled the cup of 
pleasure for me, filled it almost. There could be 
no fulness of happiness alone. "What did Neron 
care that this river, running from mystery into 
the deep still sea of dreams, was wrapping itself 
in purple dusk? What did LeBel, from whose 
pails came the authentic odors of good food? 
What did he care that the passing moment was 
plumed with immortal beauty? Such was their 
daily air. They lived on the peak of Darien and 
did not know it. And I wanted, most painfully, 
some other one to give me passionate assurance, 
if only with a nod, that the thing was seen with 
seeing eyes, treasured in a loving heart for the 
eternal future. 

The same wistful emptiness marred a too-per- 
fect evening. The setting was too exquisite for 
common tales. "Fume un pen, parte un peu"; 
that was the guides' habit, and, otherwheres, a 
good one. But this time the gods had conspired 
to show me unimagined things ; and it were rude^ 
ness to ignore them. The crested hills had disap- 
peared, and the waters had faded, when the for- 
gotten moon arose, and brought back the wild 



LA GRANDE DECHARGE 291 

stream, now turned into a ghostly esplanade. It 
made our island magical. 

That night we pitched no tent, but lay under 
crocus-colored skies while the moon trudged up 
the hill of heaven. I slept a while, then woke to 
mark its progress, and then slept again, my senses 
lulled by an invading peace. 



CHAPTER XIX 

LA EEINE DU SAGUENAY 

LL roads and rivers in that part of the Pro- 
vince lead one, regrettably or not as you 
are minded, to Chicoutimi. And when we three 
had breakfasted on onananiche fried in butter — 
possibly the most delicious morsel known — we set 
our caps for her, called by some one, in a moment 
of hallucination, the Queen of the Saguenay. 

Two great rapids intervened. When we 
reached great La Vache Caille, which, next to the 
rapids of Niagara, is the most stately sight of 
waters rushing to a magnificent end that I have 
ever seen, I stood beside them, overwhelmed with 
sound and motion. Here all the beauties, that the 
river had hinted of before, reached perfection. 
The great waves dashed higher into whiter spray, 
the silken cradles were deeper and swayed to 
wilder music. These terraces of foaming water 
were impregnable. No boat could have gone a- 
gypsying down them. A man or a moose would 
have been battered into eternity in three swings of 
those thresliing arms. And yet to gaze at that 

292 



LA REINE DU SAQUENAY 293 

hypnotic speed, to hear that vibrant roar, to gaze 
and listen overlong might cloud the reason. 
Heights do not entice me much, but I drew back 
from the brink of La Vache Caille sensible of its 
power. Marvelous, magnificent ecstasy of whit- 
ened water; it seemed like forsaking some just 
hidden knowledge to leave them and go on. 

Just below the Vache Caille La Petite Decharge 
joins La Grande, and we paddled down swift 
water of the reunited streams until the Gervais 
rapids came to ear. Neron had been telling me 
how some Americans had insisted on trying the 
Gervais and been drowned. Looking down that 
mile of milk-white tumult it took less imagina- 
tion to see why they had been drowned than 
why they had attempted the passage. Not even 
to uphold my status as American should I have 
wanted to attempt those very visible rocks, to say 
nothing of the invisible remous and tourniquets. 
Whereupon my men treated me to a real sensa- 
tion. Down the torrent we ran, and had now 
entered, or so it seemed to me, this abominable 
rapid itself. ''Are they crazy?" I thought. I 
now knew enough about side-currents, sudden 
heavings, the insidiousness of smrls, and the un- 
sightability of rock-edges, to see that they were 
trying to satisfy my yesterday's craving for ex- 
citement. The craving had been much subdued, 
but they did n 't know that. I determined to ap- 



294 THE LAURENTIANS 

pear nonchalant at any rate. And the rate, may 
I add, was already excessive. 

We were not far from the shore, going swiftly. 
The current was bound for midstream and a wel- 
ter of white water, in which my newly experienced 
eyes told me a canoe would, be no obstacle at all 
to drowning. The men were paddling hard. I 
didn't see that they made headway. We swirled 
about the end of a rock I had not noticed. The 
river sang, the rush increased. Neron yelled. 
They both stuck down their paddles and with two 
mighty heaves virtually lifted us out of that cur- 
rent and toward the shore. LeBel leaped out as 
before; the up-current helped him with the boat. 
In a brief instant I was standing on the rocks, 
just one canoe-length from disaster. ''There 's 
where it happened," said Neron, pointing just 
a little farther out, and I saw where my fel- 
low-countrymen had been less fortunate than I. 
"I 'm glad you changed your minds about going 
down," was all the satisfaction that I gave them. 

We carried for a mile to a place where most 
of the danger was past and then they allowed 
me a little practice at bow paddle. Doing it your- 
self is about the only fun in running rapids, after 
the first freshness goes. But doing it is fun. 
And I was sorry when the river calmed do^vn, 
the last riffle flattened out, the last swirl let go 
of the bow and dropped behind. We had come 



LA REINE DU SAQUENAY 295 

from the firs to the fields, had climbed heights 
new to the soul, had met the red gods there, and 
come by strange highways home. And now it 
was ended. 

As least I had had all, but the satisfaction of 
coming home. During those next hours of pad- 
dling between descending banks on a stream now 
steaming with midday the '4t was ended" sensa- 
tion was very acute. And nothing ahead offered 
much alleviation. At St. Dal a six-mile portage 
began, by cart of course, and then a short pad- 
dle would land us at Chicoutimi. The spirit of 
adventure slept. 

And while it is sleeping I would offer a word of 
advice to men contemplating this trip. Go by all 
means to St. Joseph d' Alma. By all means en- 
gage Neron and LeBel. Start at the top of the 
river, fish from L ' He Maligne. And proceed the 
next day down to see La Vache Caille. But then 
and there have the teams meet you at the bank 
and repair to St. Jo again instead of having those 
momentous memories clouded by lesser things on' 
the way to Chicoutimi. 

At Chicoutimi the spirit of adventure woke and 
cried for food, and Providence heard and bared 
her nipple. At five I had paid off my men and had 
seen them start the return journey with a certain 
homesickness. By six I was bathed, and by seven 
fed. At eight, thanks to Providence's strong 



296 THE LAURENTIANS 

stimulant, I had climbed the hill back of the Cath- 
olic church, past the Catholic nunnery, and beyond 
the Catholic school to get a catholic view of Chi- 
coutimi, when striding down upon me — ^you are 
always going up or down in Chicoutimi — came 
Phil Kimball, my pal of the Peribonka picnic. 

''Hello," said he imperturbably, ''I 'm glad 
you Ve arrived." 

''Well, I ^m surprised if you 're not," I said, 
because he was so imperturbable. 

"I 'm not. There 's a chap at the hotel said 
you 'd left Roberval. Another heard you 'd gone 
to St. Joseph. Everybody knows about every- 
body else here." 

"Does that inconvenience you?" I couldn't 
help saying, and got a poke in the ribs for it. 
"What are you doing here?" 

"Same old thing — missing parts." 

"How's the hotel?" 

"Better, thanks." Phil laughed. "Of course 
we get the same things: soupe aux tamates, pore, 
pommes de terre bouillees, the, pudding aux pain. 
These articles shall never pass my lips again, 
once I 've shaken the dust of this blessed country 
from my — liver." 

Phil did not say the word blessed, but another, 
from which I gathered he had been fed up, not 
only with bread-pudding but with foreign society. 



LA REINE DU SAQUENAY 297 

**I have found the real French-Canadian at 
last," I said, *'at St. Joseph d' Alma— a mighty 
hospitable lot." 

**0h, yes," replied Phil drolly, ''they are noted 
for their hospitality. They have been most hos- 
pitable to my money; they receive it generously. 
When I have to drive out to a farm they charge 
for the car, one dollar a mile, and because I 'm an 
American the miles are particularly numerous. 
Voyez-vousf" 

"Well, they take your money courteously, any- 
way, old grouch," I said. 

"Yes, they are not unjustly blamed for their 
courtesy. They do say, ' Oui, Monsieur, ' no matter 
what you ask. This is surely the highest form 
of courtesy." 

"I had to laugh at him, and this encouraged 
him to go on: "Their fad, you see, is to make an 
interesting story for you. So of course truth, 
being dull, rarely figures in it." 

"You really mean that you have n't understood 
them." 

' ' Well, who could ? They and their French came 
over in 1600, and have been only slightly affected 
by the weather since. And speaking of the 
weather it 's been unspeakable here, astonishingly 
hot, anything above ninety in the shade and no 
shade, all the forests being on fire. The smoke 



298 THE LAURENTIANS 

has been so thick that we haven't been able to 
see across the river on which I 've had to perch, or 
rather parch, for two weeks." 

By this time we had clambered to the top of 
Chicoutimi and sat down by the monument of the 
first of the House of Price, le Roi du Saguenay. 
Phil had rid himself of his surface grouch and 
had begun to tell me of the good times he had 
been having with the habitants, and made me all 
the more determined to go live on a real habitant 
farm for a while. I was amazed at the view 
which these ten minutes of climbing had given us. 
At our feet the Saguenay, finally tamed to com- 
merce, separated our house-clad hill from some 
great orange-colored cliffs shining in the last light 
of the tawny sun. Below, the river broadened to 
a full mile before it turned, and I could see green 
meadows and a line of homes, then the cliffs and 
distant line of mountain ranges which spelled in- 
trigue for me. Toward the northeast there lay 
other, remoter, wilder regions than often meet 
the civilized eye, and I could figure out the passes 
that led through them to the upper waters of the 
Bersimis and that savage wilderness that has 
lured strange-dreaming men to the fatal Labra- 
dor. 

Upstream was all field of cloth of gold with 
sun-glitter, and for a moment all the smoke and 
haze that hovered over the town turned beautiful. 



LA REINE DU SAQUENAY 299 

The many great Catholic edifices, the church 
spires, even the columns of coal-smoke pouring 
up from the three tugs in the little harbor were 
etherealized. But la Reine du Saguenay was a 
rather tawdry-looking queen, energetic enough, 
but with all her favor gone, looking as I suppose 
Queen Elizabeth of England might have looked 
immediately after doing a little chimney-sweep- 
ing at Windsor Castle. But it was not 'hard 
to imagine the place as it looked two hundred 
years before, when the Jesuits had built a mission 
and the Hudson's Bay Co. a post. I had only to 
shut my eyes to see a few white buildings, gleam- 
ing on the hill against the eternal green of the 
great pines of that time, looking across to the 
immemorial encampment of the Montagnais on 
the opposing cliffs, looking downstream whence 
came their assistance in the spring, and upstream 
whither they sought, one the kingdom of God, 
the other the equally adjacent kingdom of the 
wild. 

This tiny nucleus of civilization was right roy- 
ally placed, and I do not wonder that the scat- 
tered families of the Saguenay — there were not a 
hundred around Chicoutimi in 1860 — thought of 
the village tenderly on winter nights, looked to 
her for help, and, thanks to la maison Price, al- 
ways got it. Le Roi du Saguenay was much more 
authentic than la Reine. 



300 THE LAURENTIANS 

''When you stop dreaming," said Phil," we '11 
eat." 

Having been filled with the desire to live a V hab- 
itant for a while, my fate now took me b^y the hand 
and led me into the very jaws of one. 

There is, I forget to say, one street in Chicou- 
timi which is not laid out on the perpendicular. 
It is along this street that the business, the restau- 
ranting, the movie-ing, and the rest of the night 
life of Chicoutimi (culminating in nine-o'clock 
orangeades) take place. In order to miss none of 
the gaiety we had rather hastened through sup- 
per and were strolling down this street, a little 
late for the movies and a little early for the drug- 
store baechanale, when I saw a sight that brought 
me up standing. The sight was a house so hospi- 
tably built, so charming with its curved roof and 
broad eaves, its gallery with settees and chairs, 
a profusion of potted plants and dignified shelter- 
ing trees, so altogether quaint and beautiful, set 
there on its lawn, that I stopped and stared. 
How, with a vision like that for model, these other 
house-owners could endure to live in their stodgy 
boxes of brick is a problem still beyond me. 
They managed it stoically enough, apparently, as 
Monsieur Joseph Guay's home is one of the very 
few remnants of early colonist style in the toAvn, 
Just then Monsieur Guay came out on the porch, 



LA REINE DU SAQUENAY 301 

and Phil, wlio of course knew everybody in the 
town, introduced me. 

''Oh, yes, I knew you were coming," said this 
gentlemen ; ' ' Colonel Scott told me that you would 
fish for ouananiche. I expected that you would 
find me." 

Monsieur Guay's expectations were based, as I 
found out later, on experience. Everybody hunt- 
ing anything in the Chicoutimi region came to him 
for information. They sought information and 
found a friend in this big, upstanding, generous- 
hearted man — he had once kept a chateau, wrote 
much for the papers, knew everybody in the 
countryside, and was generally identified with 
the progress of the place. "Oh, yes, I do much 
organizing," he admitted. ''Whenever any one 
wants a fishing excursion or a trip through the 
Province or to engage a chef or some timber 
limits they hear of me, even as you have done, 
and it is my pleasure to help them. Can I organ- 
ize something for you?" 

I told him that I would like to be organized 
on to a habitant farm on the edge of nowhere. 

"If you will come here to-morrow at three I 
shall have it organized," he said with the assur- 
ance of Atropos. ' ' And now shall we have some 
beer?" 

It was cold, delicious beer, enjoyed in a large 
low-ceilinged room in the company of our host's 



302 THE LAURENTIANS 

wife and Mademoiselle Guay, a girl not yet 
twenty-one but with the poise and charm of the 
best French tradition. She had been educated in 
a convent and had had a year of Paris. A slim 
young banker, who was doing foreign service in 
one of the great bank's branches in Martinique, 
an extremely nice-looking banker, also had beer 
with us. He had come back home on the great 
quest, and I suspect that he has already been 
successful. I hope so, for they made a very at- 
tractive couple, this planning youth and provok- 
ing maid, who paid polite attention to our aged 
views while doubtless thinking of very other 
things. 

To crown a delightful evening, Monsieur Guay 
took us up a hill to call on Monsieur Dubuc, one 
of the region's lumber-kings. I found still an- 
other pleasure here, for Monsieur Dubuc is one 
of that sort of men who take a very high polish. 
He had apparently worked into the control of 
large interests, but withal had neglected neither 
literature nor the arts. One charm of being rich 
in Chicoutimi is this : you can import pictures and 
plastic treasures and still live on the rim of the 
frontier. Monsieur Dubuc interspersed his criti- 
cisms of French-Canadian poetry with accounts 
of exploration to the north. It was a rare pleas- 
ure to listen to a man so keen, so well-informed, 
and so courteous as he. I would have let the 



LA REINE DU SAQUENAY 303 

night slip by had Monsieur Guay not happened 
to know that he was leaving at dawn for Gaspe. 

Monsieur Dubuc arranged for his hospitality 
to linger after him; and the next day Monsieur 
Guay motored me out to Lac Kenogami for lunch 
at Monsieur Dubuc 's place, Villa Marie. The 
low, hospitable house was made more hospitable 
yet by a preparative drive of miles through a 
dark, eery wood. It was set at the end of the 
lake, and the view from it of high, wooded hills 
and the narrow, sky-reflecting water was restful. 

''You have a choice to make," said Monsieur 
Guay on the way out. ''Monsieur Dubuc puts 
his residence at your disposal if you would care 
to rest from your travels; but also a friend of 
mine, a real habitant, sails at supper-time down 
the Saguenay to St. Basile. That, too, is a 
chance you will not have again. It is too bad." 

I had got used to being served dilemmas. The 
idea of loafing on the gentleman ^s premises, and 
enjoying the singular restfulness of that spot 
made a choice difficult. But the adventure lay 
the other way. And when I have to decide be- 
tween luxury and the laborious but pregnant 
path, Tennyson's old Ulysses helps me out. Any 
one whose notions of Tennyson (notions doubt- 
less carried over from the classroom days of first 
love and Elaine) are that he is an inspiration to 
pastry-cooks only should read that poem. Its 



304 THE LAURENTIANS 

structure is of the immortal steel; only, unlike 
most modern poetic structures, the framework is 
wrought with a finished beauty. So I repeated 
to myself: 

Yet all experience is an arch wherethro' 
Gleams that untravel'd world whose margin fades 
For ever and for ever when I move. 
How dull it is to pause, to make an end. 

And so I told Monsieur Guay to serve up his 
habitant. 

The decision did not spoil our lunch, however, 
nor the sub^sequent ride on Lac Kenogami, a sing- 
ular ribbon of water, twenty-two miles long and 
about a half-mile wide, with, to complete its 
singularity, two outlets. 

''How dull it is to pause!" as Tennyson says. 
And how dull it would be, say I, if I should pause 
and tell all the things I was told about Chicoutimi ! 
Information, once removed from the informer, 
falls dead, or at least somnolent. That is the 
reason that encyclopedias and guide-books are so 
exasperating. Perhaps if Mr. Bernard Shaw had 
written them they would at least be readable. 
But would they be informative? Can life be in- 
formative? Then why does every age burn its 
fingers on its appropriate fires I Even Christ 
bothered little to be explicit. As soon as you 
can define a thing it ceases to be that. Christ 
preferred to point the way. The world is not so 



LA REINE DU SAQUENAY 305 

much an asylum of the spheres (as my friend 
Butherford apprehends) as a large-scale kinder- 
garten. The few adults who visit us, and say a 
few kind words, usually say them over our heads. 
"We object audibly, and often rather profanely 
(for children), at having to work out our indivi- 
dual salvations, at having to pay for our own hu- 
manity. But, since we never seem able to live 
deeper than we experience, the best thing is, with 
Ulysses again to 

Push off, and sitting well in order smite 
The sounding furrows. 

Which, at 8 p. m., I did beneath a gusty sky, in the 
chaloup belonging to and peopled by Mr. Basile 
Villeneuve of St. Basile, Saguenay, P. Q. 



CHAPTER XX 

THE REALM OF VILLENEUVB 

MONSIEUR GUAY had introduced me to the 
family Villeneuve — at least to a proper 
fraction of it — on the dock, said au revoir, and 
probably pledged a candle to St. Vitus for having 
whisked me off his hands so succinctly. He had 
gone and I was left in the midst of eighteenth 
century France, on a little tug which was to trans- 
port me to the seventeenth in a few hours' tug- 
ging. My fellow-habitants began to bring their 
personalities into focus. 

The tug-owner and father of the group, my pilot 
and host, was a tall thin man of seventy-one, with 
hair that would have intrigued a home-hunting 
mouse, a face that expressed a toleration of 
things, though without any foolish blindness to 
their irony, and a temperament that had to re- 
lieve itself in a burst of song or a jig every little 
while. 

Basile Villeneuve 's son, thirty-two, was more re- 
served than his father, but also with a tendency to 
song, and that in a warmly agreeable voice. Dark, 

306 



THE REALM OF VILLENEUVE 307 

unshaven, spare, and strong, lie yet had a certain 
Celtic softness of demeanor, suggesting that he 
would not be too rough with les jeunes filles. 

These two were the crew. In addition I was 
introduced to the Bouchards, father, mother, and 
Thaddee, who were also about to visit St. Basile, 
and a young man studying at the seminary, Ar- 
thur Fortier, affable and headed priescward. 
The rest of the boat-load, about a score of women 
and children, were part of a family whom we 
should drop en route. 

''Circumstances? I make circumstances!'^ was 
Napoleon's favorite chirrup at fate. I should 
like to have seen him try a hand at those Cana- 
dian circumstances called the weather. It never 
rains but it interrupts something. We had no 
sooner got clear of la Reine's skirts and out into 
the current, which is far from despicable when 
the tide is ebbing, than a thunder squall opened 
upon us, the Saguenay rose and beat upon our 
tug, and we flew. It was all very well as a spec- 
tacle, but I had desired to see the shore instead of 
the ship's hold into which half the parish seemed 
to have crowded. I went up into the little wheel- 
house where Monsieur Villeneuve was singing to 
himself. ''Je suis gai — toujours gai," he said 
naively, and that was no mere boast. 

If you will imagine the Hudson River above 
Tarrytown in the days of the early Dutch, you 



308 THE LAURENTIANS 

will get some idea of the present Saguenay from 
Chicoutimi to the capes. After a scattering of 
houses opposite the one town, in a bay called L' 
Anse aux Foin, comes a wild bleak river a mile 
wide, with wooded palisades, and but two or three 
places where colonist lamps betoken a farm- 
house in a cove. 

In the unaffected blackness of the night we 
drove before the wind, old man Villeneuve 's three 
score years and ten on the river making him cer- 
tain of his course. The swish of the waves, the 
slashing of the gust did not drown the merriment 
from below. What the French-Canadian cannot 
endure he laughs away. And presently I wan- 
dered thither. 

It was like the diminutive of one of le Sieur de 
Champlain's excursions. I found a cabin atmos- 
phered with tobacco smoke instead of air, lighted 
with a bracketed lamp, the wall-bunks carpeted 
with babies and bundles, the sitting-places filled 
with habitant femininity, and the few males lean- 
ing against doorways singing to an accompani- 
ment of chatter. I began my interrogations on 
young Thaddee Bouchard, a pleasant-faced youth 
of twelve, and soon found out why he was entirely 
charming: he hailed from St. Joseph d' Alma. 
It is useless to pretend that communities have 
not their own esprit which dyes all dwellers there- 
in: St. Joseph d' Alma has, Eoberval has. And 



THE REALM OF VILLENEUVE 309 

otherwise, what would be the use of having grand- 
fathers 1 

My evening passed between listening to the 
cabin chorus and visits to the pilot solos, with 
an occasional peering into the murk. I learned 
that we were to tie up at La Descente des Femmes 
to await the dawn. This place had been named 
after some sauvagwses, who, their spouses be- 
ing ill or injured, were enjoined to go for help; 
and since the shores of the Saguenay are some- 
what steep they descended at La Descente, with 
gratitude, I suppose, in their hearts for its facili- 
ties. My imagination, always rather fervid in 
the dark, had pictured the place so vividly named 
as a site on the cliff where a somewhat smoother 
precipice than most might have enabled the 
squaws to wrap their aprons behind them and 
slide to freedom. Nor was I dispossessed of the 
notion at once. For when we drove to shore I 
saw lanterns high above, heard enough shouting 
and social pother to dock a Lusitania, and ob- 
served that the tide, which rises some twenty-odd 
feet, had slunk away, leaving innumerable rungs 
of a slippery ladder as our only means of exit. 
L' ascente des femmes, it struck me, would be 
far more ticklish than any amount of descending, 
and I wondered just how we were going to hoist 
the babies from the hold. But, stopping their 
chorales for a moment, the women and children 



310 THE LAURENTIANS 

clambered up without a whimper, the men ex- 
pedited the bundles and babies after them, and 
the whole incongruous host of us marched at mid- 
night on an unsuspecting household. 

The habitant of the Saguenay is by heart a 
social creature. But by nature he is rendered 
solitary. His farm is separated by space and by 
the seasons from intercourse with every other 
farm. To be sure, he is not lonely on his own 
plot of wilderness. His own progeny are enor- 
mously plentiful, and a homestead sheltering a 
family of twenty, say, cannot be considered a her- 
mitage. But on the annual or even semi-annual 
occasion when he gets away from home and takes 
his trip to town, he is bound to lose no moment of 
that occasion in sleep. This I was now about to 
find out. 

We entered the roomy and well-lighted kitchen 
of a cousin Villeneuve. I had had a long day and 
already a longish night, and hoped that couches 
or at least places on the floor would soon be 
shown us. Instead the daughters of the family 
began to spread the table, a desultory song arose 
from here and there, the men were already com- 
paring crops, the women gossiping, and I, dislik- 
ing to fly in the face of unanimity, joined the chil- 
dren in a brave effort to keep awake. Of these I 
could not decide which were the most stoic: the 
babies on the floor, the youngsters on the stools. 



THE REALM OF VILLENEUVE 311 

the cMldren on chairs, or Thaddee and I, the trav- 
elers, on a lounge. All were equally pop-eyed and 
uncomplaining. It was after midnight; we were 
supposed to catch the tide at three. To bridge 
the interval we were treated to a taste of dande- 
lion-wine, so good that I inquired the recipe: 

1 pint of dandelion flowers 

2 pounds of sugar 
1 gallon of water 
% cake of yeast 

10 days of waiting, and then it can be bottled, cooled, 
and consumed. 

Soon we were summoned to the communal meal. 
Large bowls of curdled milk were passed around, 
thick slices of the best white bread in the world, 
pots of wild-strawberry or wild-raspberry con- 
fiture, the most delicious known, and pitchers of 
fresh milk. On such was Abraham's son, Isaac, 
brought up and fattened for sacrifice, and as I 
saw aunt and offspring eagerly dipping curds 
and whey from the same bowl I knew that this 
was the original family-arity. 

And now the spirits of all rose, and a com- 
munal hubbub with them. Never have I seen 
such enthusiastic conversation. The simian the- 
ory was at once exploded, for monkeys were 
never in it. Instead of the ordinary give and 
take of repartee, the sides seemed organized to 
out-chatter each other. An innocent remark 



312 THE LAURENTIANS 

would be responded to by a volley of objection, 
and that in turn stemmed by a platoon of men 
and women up in cackling arms. My helpless 
ears were deafened by it. Having reached the 
apex of their vocal powers they began to call 
their limbs into play, voices getting higher, arms 
getting wilder, until I feared that I was to be 
present at a murder. It seemed as if I had been 
listening to devastating revelations of wickedness ; 
the one side refuting them as preposterous, the 
other backing them up. Suddenly the squall 
blew by, and both sides paused to take a drench 
of milk. I asked Thaddee what it was about; 
and he explained that the salmon season had be- 
gun on the twentieth of June last year according 
to one crowd, and on the twenty-first according to 
the other. So much for Celtic chat. 

By now, I thought, I could rightfully hope for 
bed. But it seemed we were to have some music 
first. And real music it was, coming from the 
heart, the racial heart that beat as warmly on 
the Saguenay as ever on the Seine. Closing my 
eyes I fancied myself in this family's ancestral 
kitchen in Normandy as there followed one an- 
other the old songs, ''Sur le Pont d' Avignon," 
*'A la claire Fontaine." In deference to my 
language they attempted that song just then 
sweeping the Saguenay, **It 's a Long, Long Way 
to Tipperary," and we parted for our respective 



THE REALM OF VILLENEUVE 313 

berths in the best of humors about 1 a. m. Pos- 
sibly this was in deference, too, to symptoms 
which I could control no longer. At any rate my 
yawns did the infants a good turn. 

Oh how gray it sometimes is the morning after, 
especially when only two hours after! Thaddee 
woke me. I stumbled into my shoes and the cha- 
loup, and remember my first astonishment at the 
sight of La Descente des Pemmes. Instead of a 
female-flattened slide I saw a vast sloping mea- 
dow, backgrounded by cliffs as imposing in the 
dawn as the Yosemite's. And there in the green 
lap of rolling pastures nestled five white-painted 
homes with their incurved roofs, their ovens of 
clay, their multitudinous out-houses; a minia- 
ture settlement, guarded by the eternal granite 
on three sides and the stark river on the fourth. 
Herein the lifeblood of the Loire country was 
safe from molestation by the world. As we 
cleared the harbor the sun tinged the gray dawn 
with rose. I realized that I had found a new 
kind of buried treasure. 

The next hour was very interesting to me, for 
I was approaching a place intended for an inde- 
finite stay. In the shifting lights of the fresh 
morning the Saguenay, now utterly without hab- 
itation, seemed a wider, wilder, stormier, pre- 
historic Hudson; and I was momentarily glad 
that I had not tried it in a canoe. I had been dis- 



314 THE LAURENTIANS 

couraged from canoeing it by people as far away 
as Montreal. And the French in Quebec, Rober- 
val, and Chicoutimi, disliking water, had urged 
its dangers on my imagination until I felt the 
very fool for having suggested it to them. "You 
will be drowned," was the common first expres- 
sion, "or at least marooned." "Do not consider 
such a thing," had said good Colonel Scott, finally 
dispelling my fond dream of going from Lake 
St. John to the St. Lawrence by canoe. It is 
true that the thunder-squall of the evening be- 
fore, the present tossing tides of sullen gray had 
argued mth them. "Idiot to have conceived it," 
thought I, "but—" And the "but" stuck. In- 
stead of finding the shores of the river at right 
angles to the water as I had been led to expect, it 
seemed to me that there were many grassy re- 
treats where one could outstay bad weather. And 
I sighed for Fred. My sigh was cut short by our 
lurching around a promontory, whereupon St, 
Basile swam into my ken, a tmy harbor, a hill, 
a cozy little chapel, a farmhouse and barn, and 
behind all, the mountain-sides rising into cloud. 
Except for the wavering column of blue smoke 
from the farm there was small sign that others 
existed in this world. There were no means of 
withdrawing from this place other than by the 
brackish, cold, and treacherous Saguenay, for be- 
yond the near mountains lay others and no road. 



THE REALM OF VILLENEUVE 315 

I was really a prisoner of nature and the family 
Villeneuve. 

The rest of this chapter is written of another 
world. From the moment I disembarked with 
the family Bouchard — the rest of the travelers 
had remained at Descente des Femmes — I was in 
New France. The period was of the last great 
Louis, but the place was so far removed from 
even him that no edict could ruffle the remoteness 
of our realm. We were invulnerable alike to 
misfortune or to fortune, and also to the trans- 
portation companies. Nobody, I learned to my 
consternation, would likely leave the place for 
months. They had not answered my queries in 
Chicoutimi so clearly. I was squatted there on 
a St. Helena slanting* at an angle of thirty de- 
grees into the hostile river. No mail arrived, no 
groceries, no bills. We were sufficient unto our- 
selves. And that this may be the more easily 
comprehended let me tabulate the items that go 
toward the making of a realm. 

Take a tidal river, preposterously deep and 
two miles wide, two mountain ranges that admit 
a fertile valley, and a vast hinterland of game- 
rich wilderness, and you have the raw materials. 
Choose a cove between the ranges, build a boat- 
house, a shrine, shelters for your family and your 
animals, and arrange a plot of ground for ceme- 
tery. Near the house plant your tobacco and your 



316 THE LAURENTIANS 

kitchen garden, further back your wheat. See 
that Noah supplies you with two of all the do- 
mestic cattle. Your belled cows will browse in 
the bush, your sheep in an upper pasture, your 
pigs in the dooryard, and your poultry about the 
door. From the stream in your valley you draw 
trout, and from the river salmon, wild strawber- 
ries grow on the slopes and other berries in the 
clearings. There is kindling at hand, and logs for 
the drawing from the forest. Partridges accom- 
modate themselves to your gun in their season 
and venison in plenty, while afar range caribou 
and moose and wolves. The realm is yours. 
You have your flocks and herds, your women and 
your other beasts of burden; and when the twi- 
light gathers, while your wife is doing the last 
chores you can sit on the porch and ruminate on 
the wealth of your lands, the work of your hands, 
and the beauty of a world undisturbed by tax-col- 
lectors. I know of no other place in the world to- 
day where the conditions of ancient freedom are 
to be enjoyed like this ; the wide liberties of Dan- 
iel Boone unshadowed by the dollar-mark, un- 
flecked by the frothings of the bolshevik. This 
was to be my realm for as long as I chose. 

I mounted the semi-precipice that led to the 
farmhouse and met my hostess, a well-preserved 
old lady, agile as a grand-daughter, with a fine 
carriage, a finely furrowed face, and an almost 



THE REALM OF VILLENEUVE 317 

Indian-like beadiness of eye. Then I stepped out 
on the porch and into the presence of snch a view 
as only those who live on the east shore of Para- 
dise can comprehend. It was still early morning. 
Deep shadows from the cliff, on which I was to 
live, still lay on the river far below; and the two 
protecting ranges, which enclosed our valley, still 
harbored sunny clouds. Far across the noble 
stream rose a great palisade, one bit of which, a 
sheer wall of granite hundreds of feet high, is 
called Le Tableau. An orange light bathed this 
wild rock, and filled with an uncanny radiance the 
primeval forest on its head and shoulders. Up 
the river and down the river, as far as the near 
ranges would let me see, swept a huge panorama 
of ever-changing color on cliffs that never 
changed. Not joyless but stern gods had shaped 
those shores. Great bays, and greater heads of 
virgin stone not yet decked with the fussings of 
humanity, ran into the distances. These grim 
headlands seemed stone shafts from the incor- 
ruptible and central earth. And that they might 
not be too severe they were clothed in flowing 
shadows and overflowing sun. It was like the 
sweep of a vast eagle's wing, this view, and had 
seemed good to the eternal eye. To mine it 
seemed a very thunderbolt of scenes, and I knew 
that I should live much on that porch. 
Now I set about learning how to be king of a 



318 THE LAURENTIANS 

realm. I had opportunity to educate myself in 
everything from colt colic to — I was going to say 
midwifery, though that particular exigency did 
not arrive. (Only twice in the history of 
the family had a doctor stopped at the place.) 
We breakfasted late, for farmers: the habitant 
does not compete with the sun or anybody else. 
After our pork and tea Thaddee and I made the 
rounds of the various sections of the family, 
watching, perchance helping. Down at the har- 
bor they were setting salmon-nets and painting 
the tug. Up in the raspberry-patch vast droves 
of children were picking berries. On the moun- 
tain-side trees were being felled for an addi- 
tional clearing, which would soon be burned. The 
mother was in the cold kitchen making butter, 
the grandmother was spinning, the daughters 
ranged from milking the cows to cooking the next 
meal, and the sons were busy with the hundred 
outdoor occupations consequent to realming it. 
All were incredibly industrious, all appeared 
happy, and when any two were gathered together 
they became swiftly voluble. 

''Tell us how your ladies live in New York," 
said Madame Basile one afternoon. "Perhaps 
we would like to change our residence." 

So I strung together the events of a society 
matron's day from her breakfast in bed, through 
bridge-party, theater supper, and all the social 



THE REALM OF VILLENEUVE 319 

press of it to the headache on the morning after. 

"Hein/' sniffed the good old lady, "I think we 
shall stay here. It would wear us out." I 
smiled, for she was about to cook a meal for eight- 
een of us, after which she would scrub the floor, 
in case the daughters were all milking. I won- 
dered whether the charming old ladies of seventy 
in New York would not think that their chores of 
opera and chaperonage were the less arduous. 

All leisure hours of the women were spent in 
floor-scrubbing and it made me indignant. Af- 
ter chapel in the evenings the men of the realm 
would assemble, eight or nine of them, in the 
kitchen to talk and smoke and spit. There were 
lots of spittoons; but the callous males ignored 
them, preferring to maculate the floor, which 
would be rendered immaculate the next morning 
by the elbow-and-back aches of the women. Why 
these overworked creatures did not knife their 
males in the night I do not know. Certainly their 
day's toil in the necessary round was long enough 
to have made unnecessary labor poison to their 
souls. 

Alas, reality, even in one's own monarchy, is 
not an Arabian Night's Dream. From morning 
till night these people wrested a living from the 
lively hours of summer, in the hope that it would 
put them over the eight months of winter when 
death lay on field and river. In King Basile's 



320 THE LAURENTIANS 

castle there was no bathtub, no furnace, no maga- 
zine, no book, no telephone, no art, no music, no 
little thing with which to bridge those hours of 
tedium and melancholy which must come to souls 
about to gird their loins for further flight. How 
I longed to give them a desire for one of these; 
but it would have been acting Satan's role in the 
Grarden. A victrola might have precipitated a 
revolution; and of those there are enough in the 
world. A book might have stirred up an exodus ; 
the place itself was paradise. 

And in this paradoxical paradise, that lacked 
all the comforts, they were happy. There was no 
doubting that. Smiling was the key in which 
their life was lived. From child to grandmother, 
everybody smiled. The children were a never- 
ending amazement to me, being healthier, hand- 
somer, and happier than any race I had ever 
come across. I got to know them well. Thaddee, 
;fiitienne, Georges, and I comprised a fishing-squad, 
with a purpose. It was on the third day that I 
got this up. Those days were very hot, but each 
meal there came to my table pork, swimming in 
its own fat. It was incomprehensible to me, with 
chickens, ducks, geese, trout, salmon, sheep, cal- 
ves, and the wilds to call on for variety — incom- 
prehensible and loathsome. I was an emperor 
in the raw, at least with everything heart might 



THE REALM OF VILLENEUVE 321 

desire about me, yet must my meals be solely of 
that vomitable stuff? Merci! So the fishing- 
squad spent its afternoons, first on the near-by 
brooks, then on remoter lakes which were sprink- 
led about the land. And it was on these hikes 
that my knights prattled to their lord of every- 
thing under the sun in surprisingly pure French. 
It was their elders who garbled their tongue and 
cut the corners of its idioms and drugged it with 
Anglicisms; the youngsters drew from a deeper 
well. 

Never shall I know such deference again. The 
scene is noon. The squad is not sure that I may 
want to fish. But do you suppose they dance 
around and plague me with questions'? Then 
suppose again. They are lapping up their inevi- 
table pea-soup with great round eyes upon me. 
But they are silent, cheerful, and as beautiful as 
always are the untamed woods-bred young. The 
little girls have eyes of deep and entrancing love- 
liness, as if they knew that now was their time of 
life, before they are saddled with a hulking mas- 
ter. They will go a-berrying. Will we go a- 
fishing? That is the question which the squad 
long to know. It is fun to tickle their anxiety 
just a little. 

''It is really too hot for any trout this after- 
noon, don't you think, fitienne?" 



322 THE LAURENTIANS 

''Not at the Lac aux Foin, Monsieur Maurice," 
says Etienne, with a breathless look in his blue 
eyes. 

"But that is pretty far, isn't it, Georges'?" 

'*I will carry the rod, Monsieur," very quietly, 
but very earnestly. 

"What do you think, Thaddee, is it worth try- 
ing, this afternoon?" I pretend to be very much 
on the fence. Their instant anxiety is unloosed 
a peg ; they know what he will say. 

"It is worth trying, if you would enjoy it," says 
Thaddee, and of course I, thereupon, would. In- 
stantly the squad deserts its strawberry-tart and 
rushes for the rods that line the outer wall of the 
kitchen. I get the bottle of fly-dope, thread my 
way through the maze of brats upon the floor, 
(the trout-squads of coming years), and we mount 
the trail, breathless, they with joy and I with the 
slope. Barelegged, barefooted, they fly up that 
wall of rock in the amazing manners of the chil- 
dren of Pan, chattering like red squirrels all the 
while. For manners I recommend our butlers to 
them. 

Next to the saint who sponsors Canadian pigs 
the saint who looks after habitant offspring must 
have a busy time. I could never understand how 
the mothers could keep tabs on them. The marvel 
is not that one should be missing but that they 



THE REALM OF VILLENEUVE 323 

should miss one now and then. But in a lonely 
realm there are advantages in having a family of 
thirty — help in the berry-season, lots of birthday 
parties, a major league of ball-players if you like, 
and a greater distribution of the flies in any given 
room. Consider, however, the disadvantages: 
thirty beds to make a day, sixty potatoes to peel 
for dinner, ninety cups of tea to brew per meal, 
and, if every one does his duty at Christmas time, 
870 gifts to be exchanged, in addition to the stream 
of maladies, bruises, tears. In no matter how 
well-regulated a household some child is always 
squalling. Some of the part-songs of grief which 
rose to the Villeneuve roof when the flies were 
bad or when some one was choking on a cookie, — 
ah, Mon Dieu ! 

For a moment I must revert to the black 
fly. The fly in the ointment of the Saguenay 
is nothing metaphorical. The long, windless 
twilights invited him from the gloomy woods, 
for flies like life and jollity and people. As 
P. 0. D. says, ''They desert in the most heart- 
less manner the cows and horses they have lived 
with all winter and rush with a glad shout to the 
first person they see. ' ' This might seem to prove 
flies fickle. But they are not fickle. I know 
thousands of flies who had known me only casually 
and yet persisted in a most profound attachment 



324 THE LAURENTIANS 

for me. But fly ethics are not what I reverted for ; 
rather an ethonologic discovery I made, being 
nothing less than a new theory of gesture. Talk, 
as all scientists agree, originated in the fly-season. 
There is so much to say. Men began to talk then, 
for they simply had to say it. And they found 
the talk diverting. But they could not aiford to 
leave off scratching and warding off the insects 
whilst discussing them. So they continued the 
energetic motions of the limbs while, for the first 
time, relieving their souls in exclamation; and 
since those motions proved of almost equal impor- 
tance to the things said, they have carried over 
from the fly-season to the rest of the calendar and 
are known as gestures. 

Flies rank children above all other food. It 
is not unusual to see a conical mound of flies on 
the kitchen floor, and, on approaching it, disturb 
enough of them to discover underneath a baby 
with a piece of cake. All sanitary rules seem un- 
heeded in the backwoods. A little bother with 
some cheese-cloth in the spring would eliminate 
the myriads of insects. Insectlessness is a mark 
of civilization. 

Another is man's regard for woman's pleas- 
ure. One evening the young Basile was out sail- 
ing around alone in his boat. Two of the female 
slaves, having worked their fourteen hours, were 



THE REALM OF VILLENEUVE 325 

down at the river ^s edge trying to cool off. 
There was room in the boat, no errand that con- 
flicted, and they stared at it with the wistfuhiess 
of the marooned. 

*' Would n't you like to go with him?^' I asked 
them. 

"Oh, yes, we never get away from here," said 
one. 

"Then why in heaven/s name don't you?" I 
asked, impatient at the petty selfishness of the 
man. For answer, that helpless Celtic shrug, the 
most maddening motion of an ineffective will on 
earth. It always kills in me any sympathy for 
the shrugger. 

In contrast to the incontestable brutishness of 
the life to which I was a witness there were num- 
berless nuances of charm and loveliness. At 
the beginning of the twilight time we went to 
chapel, the little private tiring-place for souls, 
perched on the momentous cliff. For twenty min- 
utes aching backs, fretted minds, despairful 
spirits found solace in the symbols of eternal 
good. The satisfaction that these people got 
from their simple ritual and the telling of beads 
seemed but another proof of Christ's great state- 
ment, "The Kingdom of Heaven is within." 
Their faces shone with the inner light, and we 
left the little chapel in more charitable mood, as 



326 THE LAURENTIANS 

is the inevitable blessing that attends a pause at 
Gnod 's threshold, whether one be Catholic, Quaker, 
or lonely Indian. 

And after chapel the men usually sat on that 
world-envisaging porch smoking, telling tales, un- 
til day had resolved itself into night. Sometimes 
they sang for hours. I shall never forget those 
evenings; for more poignant than the folk-song 
of Norwegians in their green valleys, more alive 
than the crooning of the darkies in our South are 
these airs that they sang with full-voiced aban- 
don. And despite their lilting rhythms and gay 
words, they are full of pathos. They seemed to 
me the songs of a race without a country. For 
these French loved passionately the France of 
yesterday; the France of to-day is no longer 
theirs. When France disestablished the Church, 
she alienated these century-old patriots. They 
are Canadian now. But Canada lies broad from 
'Sunrise to sunset, and only a fraction of it is 
French. 

''Do you speak English?" I asked one once. 

"Do you speak Canadian!" he replied sullenly. 

They are but a part of Canada, wherein they 
once were all; and they are no longer a part of 
France, for whom their fathers suffered incredi- 
bly. Consequently these intensely loyal souls 
have only their ancient faith on which to lean ; the 



THE REALM OF VILLENEUVE 327 

ehurcli is their only native-land now. So when I 
listened to their songs, beautiful with unexpected 
turns of melody, I was listening to the heart of 
old France, sad beneath her gaiety. 

I think (to touch a delicate subject once for 
all) that I understand why the French-Canadian 
did not enlist more readily for the war. By do- 
ing so he would have been helping France, and 
France had dealt a blow to his church. He would 
have liked to help the English, for he realized that 
their destinies were inextricably bound together. 
But his counselors said No. The war was far 
away. It was dangerous. It would cost money. 
And it was principally to preserve their new en- 
emy of the spirit from being crushed. These were 
enough reasons for not joining in a hazardous 
undertaking. Therefore, not knowing the rest of 
the facts, they did not join. Canadian patriots 
of Saxon blood are wisely trying to forget the 
fearful injustices that this point of view brought 
about. The English-speaking minority in Quebec 
Province is offered many opportunities to prac- 
tise Christianity. It avails itself of them to an 
extent that would amaze the critics of the race, 
were everything known. 

From thoughts of these peoples tied to each 
other, uncongenially, in a sort of Siamese afflic- 
tion, and with the chain chorus of *'L' AUouette" 



328 THE LAURENTIANS 

in my ears, I would go up to my straw mattress 
and sleep the sleep of the habitant, long, deep, and 
continuous. 

Cheerfulness certainly puts the thumbscrews 
on Fate. I usually awoke to laughter downstairs, 
and always to chatter. The women would be 
cooking the breakfast pork, the elder daughters 
combing the youngers' hairs, the men shaving by 
the kitchen mirror, old man Basile in stocking- 
feet and furzy beard doing a jig, scaring the pigs 
from the pantry, or dislodging the hens from the 
sill. You might have supposed that we were liv- 
ing on the fat of the land instead of on sempiter- 
nal sowbelly, you might have surmised that For- 
tune had nothing more to offer, that the future 
could contain nothing of disquiet, naught of dis- 
aster. Fate had been cornered by a smile. Only 
their minds were asleep ; their hearts were awake 
and hopeful. How m.uch better than to have busy 
minds but calloused hearts! Of such is not the 
Kingdom of Heaven, and that 's sure. On the 
contrary how near was St. Basile 's realm to the 
Kingdom — and yet what worlds away! 



CHAPTEE XXI 

THE UNDISCOVERED SAGUENAY 

THE conventional preparation for the re- 
mark, *'0h, yes, I Ve seen the Saguenay," is 
this: The tourist boards one of the excursion- 
boats at Montreal or Quebec along with some hun- 
dreds of his kind, is taken by night up to Chicou- 
timi where he usually goes to the movies, not 
having time to visit the Indians at Ste. Anne, 
thence is steamed down the river again, pausing 
at the great capes for a moment that he may rid 
his system of their effect by some genial ejacu- 
lations, and so home. If he feels that he really 
ought to see the country better, he lays off at one 
of the big and conventionally expensive hotels 
at Murray Bay or Tadousac, and takes a drive 
or two. 

This is all very well for the steamship compan- 
ies, and it doesn't injure the Saguenay. But it 
seems an unnecessary waste of opportunity for 
people, who really care about such things, to 
brush by one of the most impressive sights of 
our glorious globe, and to miss acquaintance 

329 



330 THE LAURENTIANS 

with one of our planet's kindliest peoples simply 
because there are no facilities offered for a real 
acquaintance. If I were an enterprising trans- 
portation company I would organize houseboats 
on which picked parties might dally with the gods 
while drifting from cape to cape of this mystery- 
haunted stream. Doubtless the present system 
of rushing people through makes tons of money. 
But I thank Pan and old Triton with his wreathed 
horn, that the horrible contagion of seeing things 
quick did not do me out of discovering the Sague- 
nay for myself. Discovery is the spice of life. 

Early one morning of turreted cumuli and 
sweeping sun young Basile, Fortier, and I set 
out for the valley of the Ste. Marguerite. The 
road mounted Le Cote de la Lune, surely a charm- 
ing name for an eastern range, and then de- 
bouched us into virgin forest. Although July, 
the birds here were still singing, possibly for the 
very freedom of the North. Hermit thrushes 
that had hunted shelter in the wood-lots of 
Pennsylvania, had given thanks for a mountain- 
side in the Catskills, and had had to be contented 
with a forest county or two in the Adirondacks, 
found in Canada empires of solitude. Hermit- 
thrushes do not care to appear before the public. 

If I were a hermit, thrush or human, I would 
choose the valley of the Ste. Marguerite for my 
hermitage. The river is not large, nor noisy ; the 



THE UNDISCOVERED SAGUENAY 331 

banks are soft with grass or silent with firs ; for 
variety there are a few rapids, but mostly quiet 
waters flow reflectively along; and the basin is 
among the most surprising in Canada. Here the 
mountains rise higher than the Saguenay's, the 
gorges give an impression of grandeur that is 
rare in eastern America, and the magnificent for- 
est is untouched by fire. Both Monsieur Guay 
and Sir William Price have since told me that 
they consider the trip down the Ste. Marguerite 
more surprisingly beautiful than any other trip in 
the Province. Like most other covetable lands 
this region has been leased to a private club ; but 
Basile had standing permission, and the day was 
ours. 

Young Fortier was to be a priest. I could not 
conceive how a youth, on the threshold of the 
world and fond of the world, could renounce the 
world. 

''Have you never gone buggy-riding?" I asked 
him. 

''Non." 

"Do you never want to go buggy-riding?" 

''Non." 

''Why?" And that made him blush, for he 
was too modest to say that he felt called to the 
priesthood, too orthodox to admit that a call to 
go a-courting might exist at the same time, and 
too polite to call me down. 



332 THE LAURENTIANS 

Whereupon Basile sang him a song not usually 
included in the books, a song about a young man 
and sa blonde with a pleasantly carnal chorus and 
a charming air. But I do not believe the trees 
shone greener to Fortier for all that. Thinking 
that he had been teased enough I turned on Ba- 
sile, still bachelor. 

"Why do you continue to disgrace the county, 
Basile, thirty- two and unmarried! How do you 
expect to complete your quota of children if you 
do not begin ! What will the priest say, the Gov- 
ernment say? For shame!" 

Basile smiled and intimated that there was 
time yet. ''It can all be finished in two weeks," 
he said. 

"How 's that? I don't see how you ever find a 
girl in this region; don't see how you get to see 
her often enough to be sure that she 's the one. 
How will you go about it, Basile ? ' ' 

"It is easy," said the young man with that 
smile that led one to believe he knew what he 
was talking about; "perhaps the priest will come 
to me, as you do, and say, 'Basile you are lazy, 
but I think I have the girl for you. Her father 
has two hundred acres. If possible you might see 
her after church next Sunday; she is expecting 
you perhaps.' So I know that all is to be easy. 
I find her after church and we have a little walk 
in the woods and perhaps a Httle talk, and if we 



THE UNDISCOVERED SAGUENAY 333 

are attractive to one another, I go faire les de 
mandes du pere, compfenez-vousf" I nodded 
but said, ''What if you don't like her?" 

"If she is pretty, if she is rich, I will like her." 
And the dickens of it is, that 's so. He will not 
only like her, but she will submit to him with a 
loyal grace and have twenty children by him and 
scrub the kitchen-floor every morning and milk 
the cows and knit his socks while he is making 
his shoes ; and in their old age they will adorn the 
countryside with grandchildren and filled bams. 
What books are to the rest of the world, conserva- 
tors of custom and wisdom, the family is to habi- 
tant-land. They need no books. The illustrious 
lawyer, Monsieur Gonsalve Desaulniers told me, 
"On a peur du livre chez nous." Monsieur 
Dubuc told me, "It is better for them that they 
have no books." Monsieur Desaulniers is es- 
teemed a scholar in France, and Monsieur Dubuc 
is a man of culture; but they understand their 
race. These pastoral children might disquiet 
themselves about their daily bread if they could 
read. I am glad that progress can revolve about 
them and leave their healthy core untouched. 
From the loins of the Puritans sprang one great 
influence that made America; and from the calm 
of these people comes the salutary slowness and 
singleness of purpose that will help to keep 
Canada from flying off the whirling periphery of 



334 THE LAURENTIANS 

progress. If the method of having backward 
beaus and bashful brides brought together by the 
local shepherd seem ridiculous, consider the re- 
sults : a contented life, a sheaf of little ones, and 
no divorcees. 

Out of that storehouse of amiable qualities 
nature, from Talon to Laurier, has drawn ma- 
terial for many a solid deed, and will. In my 
more irritated moments I thought that habit- 
ant-land was but a human farmyard. But despite 
the habitants' parsimony, their lack of ambition, 
their cruelty to animals, and their disregard for 
truth, I came to see that they were children of 
nature; that their parsimony was the result of 
living in a frugal climate, that their domestic life 
bred content, and that the Celtic reminders of 
sunnier France made their speech of lighter im- 
port than to Saxon temperaments. Of politeness, 
of hospitality, of passive latent energy they were 
the masters. They would make good neighbors, 
they really did prefer religion to rubies, and they 
could be stubbornly loyal to a conviction. That 
is much to say. 

Those days on the Ste. Marguerite were the 
climax of my visit to the realm of St. Basile. 
With a slight infusion of the comforts of civiliza- 
tion life could conceivably reach its richest there. 
With air of Elysian purity, and water pure as 
the air, with wealth of stream and pasture, wood 



THE UNDISCOVERED SAGUENAY 335 

and wilderness, and scenes varying from cozy to 
sublime, one needed only access to the vivifying 
currents of the city to make hf e rounded, perfect. 
Access and then withdrawal to one 's realm again ! 
Could a country offer more than this? Could a 
man. ask more ? The undiscovered Saguenay will 
yield all this to him who seeks it. 

And now the urge to be afoot again was on me. 
I said good-by to my fishing-squad, walked for 
the last time up the Cote de la Lune to survey 
that magnificent gulf between the ranges which 
sloped to the blue Saguenay. My unrest had been 
caused by a strange event. We four had been 
a-trouting in the deep woods, when the vast still- 
ness had begun to hum, to buzz ; and I saw, small 
against the sky, the flying-boat pass over and on 
down the river. In an instant the charm of play- 
ing Crusoe had vanished, the woods were become 
my prison, the chatter of the children unimpor- 
tant. If I had had a rocket I should have shot 
it across their path. One talk with Rutherford, 
one evening with Kenny & Co. — ^what a priceless 
commodity just one word from those friends of 
the now long past. My vacation had been called. 

But it was one thing to determine to leave St. 
Basile, another to get -away. The excursion- 
boats did not stop at this speck of human habita- 
tion. The Villeneuves were too busy, their tug 
too expensive for me to charter for private use. 



336 THE LAURENTIANS 

The next trip to Chicoutimi would be just before 
the ice made in the autumn. And I didn't want 
to go to Chicoutimi. 

Luckily the Bouchards needed to visit at La 
Descente des Femmes where some more of their 
480 cousins lived. Accordingly I determined to 
go that far with them. Possibly some boat might 
call there in due course. So after an early chapel 
we set forth in the lingering light of late July. 
I was genuinely regretful. For some weeks I 
had lived a new life, story-book life, the ''Swiss 
Family Eobinson" life. Those who read romance 
enjoy it, those who look on it share it; but those 
who live it, alone know it. 

At my next home I found a piano, and some 
one to play it. The piano, let me add, was no 
slouch of an instrument with octaves at war with 
one another, but had an authentic voice that did 
not deride the laws of physics. And the daugh- 
ter had surprisingly good taste and ability. In 
a careless moment I played one of the two tunes 
that linger on from my musical mis-education. 
To my surprise, after supper the plantation be- 
gan to assemble — young men in shoes evidently 
cut to wear, young women in eventful Sunday 
clothes. The assumption was, I found out, that 
I was going to entertain them with a concert. 
Though infinitely resolute when it came to talking 
French, I could not quite see myself giving a 



THE UNDISCOVERED SAGUENAY 337 

piano recital on two tunes to make a habitant 
holiday. 

**Will not the daughter play?" I asked my host. 

"Apres vous, Monsieur" — the classic phrase 
at last ! 

To cut a long concert short, we had a very 
healthy evening. I never perspired so much in 
my life. Outside it was July; inside it was the 
fiery furnace, augmented with two lamps which 
were held close to my head when the time came to 
accompany the prima donnas of the family. The 
eldest girl and I played for a while in the most 
polite rotation. Considering that she lived on 
the brink of an uncultured desert, that her only 
teachers had been in the town of Chicoutimi, and 
that her hands were not preserved from the wash- 
tub or the garden for the sole practice of arpeg- 
gios, her playing was extraordinary. What would 
I not have given for a couple of Paderewski's 
melodious fingers to have been in the running, to 
have been able to show those music-starved people 
the glory of the instrument ! Wliat audiences are 
hidden on those farms ! One would be stolid in- 
deed not to respond to th-e hunger expressed by 
their attitude that night: a row of children on 
the floor, rapt and eager, a row of their elders 
on chairs and lounges and around the wall, and 
sundry faces poked through the windows or door- 
ways, faces whose chief distinguishing human 



338 THE LAURENTIANS 

fact was that they were invariably longer than 
they were broad, yet faces that shone with a far- 
away delight for a moment when their hearts 
were brushed by the wings of melody. 

At length I had a bit of inspiration. I asked 
them to sing "0 Canada.'^ It is a recent na- 
tional air, both dignified and beautiful, and it has 
swept French Canada. It resembles the great 
Eussian hymn enough to show why the people 
are already fond of it; it differs to show plainly 
how this peaceful countryside differs from that 
greater and more vividly passionate people over- 
seas. 

It would have been fun to stay there, fish 
in those brooks racing from the interior, and 
read in Monsieur Villeneuve's library. But the 
tang had been taken by that flying-boat, and I 
mentioned departing the next day. 

But my host had other views. I was paying a 
not too despicable board. Also if I should marry 
one of his daughters I might provide a little 
foreign travel for her. He had e^ddently decided 
that I had best stay. I invented exigencies. He 
invented delays. 

And, by Job's comforters, it looked as if I 
would have to stay. There was no boat. The 
one emergency exit was an uncle who might be 
passing in a week or two with his chaloup. I 



THE UNDISCOVERED SAGUENAY 339 

said that he had to concoct a way of escape for 
me. And then, of course, came that shrug. How 
I hate it! 

And now my pacific nature began to heat from 
the inside. 

''I am afraid I have not understood your 
promises of yesterday and your contradictions of 
to-day,^' I said. ''Will you please write out why 
it will be necessary to wait for your nucleus boat 
instead of taking the mail-boat which you said 
would be stopping here ? ' ' 

While he was concocting his reply on paper I 
went out and sat down in the sun. The en-goated 
hills were green but distasteful. The Yosemite- 
like clitfs seemed a prison. I resolved again 
never to believe any assem'blage of syllables these 
people chose to utter. They spoke to the desire 
of the moment, regardless of veracity. 

With a languid magnificence my host handed me 
this note: "Hier soir les noAivelles de 1' Anse St. 
Jean sont [though how it came was not stated] 
que le bateau, de ligne et que la malle ne viendra 
plus, mais cependant aussitot que mon oncle sera 
de retour ici il ira peut-etre avec vous en canot 
sans que cela coute trop cher." 

In other words I was to be held insolently cap- 
tive until the uncle should decide how much ran- 
som (in the guise of boat-fare) he would ask. 



340 THE LAURENTIANS 

Meanwhile the mail-boat would voyage by be- 
yond hail. I had reached my St. Helena without 
the satisfaction of an attempt at Waterloo. 

I began to contemplate a chain of endless hours 
on that fly-bitten bluff looking for a boat. Hor- 
rible ! Meanwhile my jailer would gloat and add 
up visionary dollars. But alas for his bank- 
account! One of his youngsters, not in the plot, 
came -running up from the river crying, 

''Le postilion, le postilion!" 

* ' The mail-man, the mail-man ! ' ' 

Like sun after rain, like firemen arriving at 
the fire, was that cry welcome. I saw a little 
boat rounding the promontory. 

"How fortunate!" said my host with admir- 
able hypocrisy. "There must have been an 
error. ' ' 

I was too suddenly happy at the turn of things 
to stop and point out where the error lay. These 
small-fry Ananiases were onty amusing, after all. 
Why get mad? So after I had negotiated for 
passage in my own person, I could laugh at the 
transient face of perdition into which I had 
looked, and say a gracious good-by. Certainly 
one cannot blame sensitive souls living on the 
fringe of barbarism for this effort to ameliorate 
their income at one^s expense. May garlands of 
immortal greenbacks be looped about their necks ! 

Those who are voyaging with me down the 



THE UNDISCOVERED SAGUENAY 341 

pages of this trip have doubtless long since aban- 
doned the expectation of excessive excitement and 
the pleasure of seeing me surrounded by deadly 
dangers. I came across very few murderers, en- 
countered almost no cannibalism, and all the fatal 
things that might have occurred were nipped in 
their incipience. But th^ secret of enjoyment lies 
in the perfecting of the moment, preferably 
against odds. And for the next hour after es- 
caping from my prison valley I rode on the crest 
of jubilation as exultingly as if I had received an 
advance order for ten thousand copies of this 
book. 

Yet the situation was charmingly simple. I 
was sunning myself on a twenty-foot boat, which 
was so oily that every time young Lavoie, its 
owner, lit a cigarette I was afraid that we would 
join the seraphim in flames. Lavoie and a young- 
ster of twelve were the sole crew, with whom the 
noise of our explosive progress forbade talk. A 
southeast wind of some strength scourged the 
dark Saguenay, although an unclouded sun beat 
back the shadowing waves with a rain of fiery 
arrows. The boat heaved and labored and tore 
down, the silvery slopes and v/aited till new slopes 
came, and I understood why we had to go up- 
stream instead of down past the Capes. 

Would I ever see those Capes! There seemed 
to be as many difficulties interposed between me 



342 THE LAURENTIANS 

and the sight of them as between Ulysses and his 
home. Would I, years later, be still beating down 
the Saguenay, avoiding Cyclops who wished my 
ransom, Scyllas and Charybdises that coveted my 
purse, still hoping to lay eyes on those great cliffs, 
and die? 

The wind drove us up Ha ! Ha ! Bay, -a name 
given by those good-natured explorers who could 
enjoy a joke even if it were on them, the joke 
being that this bay was n't the way to China. At 
the head of Ha ! Ha ! Bay lies the multiple village 
which is named Ha! Ha! Bay, St. Alphonse, or 
Bagotville, as the mood strikes you. 

'^We will wait till the wind goes down," said 
Lavoie. 

"When do you think?" 

*'Peut-etre ce soir, peut-etre demain," he said. 

''If it goes down this evening then we will pass 
the Capes in the dark," I objected. 

''I don't think it will go down this evening," 
he said. 

And he was right. 

Our Southern darkies can enjoy themselves 
where an American complains of lack of amuse- 
ment; but a French-Canadian fairly sweats with 
excitement in situations where a darky would 
die of ennui. Ha ! Ha ! Bay was such a situation. 

In two hours time I had exhausted its scenic 
wonders. Before a pulp company had piled its 



THE UNDISCOVERED SAGUENAY 34>3 

debris along the shore and erected an outrageous 
mill the place must have been one of very tran- 
quil beauty. On that noontide when the sun fell 
on white houses along the green shores, on barns 
flaring scarlet in fields that were yellow with 
mustard-weed, and on hills fronting in gray cliffs, 
there was a homely charm that spoke patheti- 
cally of pre-pulp-mill days. A great six-masted 
schooner swung at anchor, and the wind blew 
victoriously up the purple bay. All was fresh 
and beautiful under those windy skies ; but I was 
eager for the Capes. 

The next day the wind seemed as strong as 
ever. The sun shone, but with all his vehemence 
blown aside like an old man's beard. Lavoie and 
the youngster sat hour after hour in a tobacco- 
shop by the dock, correlating the gossip of the 
Saguenay with other gossip. I roamed, like a 
disconsolate hyena in a zoological garden, from 
shops where extinct newspapers were laid out to 
bazaars where curious relics of confectionery 
could still be bought. The hours passed without 
modulation of event. When I got tired of sitting 
in St. Alphonse my one diversion was to walk a 
few blocks and sit in Bagotville. 

In another day or so I felt that I should be 
petrified. Something must be done. I hated to 
give in and take one of the excursion-steamers. 
Imagine, after my life of freedom, having to con- 



344 THE LAURENTIANS 

fine myself to the correct collar and six meaning- 
less minutes of stopping before the Capes! An 
anticlimax that I refused to perpetrate on myself ! 
Leave that to the besotted bridal couples who 
lined those steamers ' decks, and who could not be 
expected to forsake gazing into each other's eyes 
to glance at Eternity. No, I could not have 
my first sight of the Capes from an excursion- 
boat. Imagine being wheeled by the Grand 
Canon on a '' Seeing the Canon" bus! 

To while away the time I called up the hotel in 
Chicoutimi about letters. Providence answered 
the phone. '^ There 's a man here from Montreal 
looking for you, a Mr. Beauvais." 

Six hours later Fred and I had made arrange- 
ments to paddle down the Saguenay by canoe. 



CHAPTER XXII 

EPICS IN STONE 

THEEE is something about a friendly per- 
sonality that by its mere presence redeems 
the exasperations of the past. Fred was always 
more than acceptable; but Fred dropped from 
heaven into Ha! Ha! Bay was a godsend and 
reward of virtue — my own virtue in not cutting 
my throat those waiting days. As a further re- 
ward the gale dropped in the night; and on an 
August morning, as calm as Marcus Aurelius, we 
departed from St. Alphonse (or Bagotville) with 
a haste that must have looked indecent to the 
orderly natives. 

After all my attendance on chaloups and motor- 
boating uncles and windstorms it was soothing to 
wield the paddle again, especially with Fred in 
the stern. The tide was running out, the slight 
breeze was with us, all our pent energies were 
concentrated upon leaving Ha! Ha! behind. By 
noon we had passed Le Tableau opposite St. Ba- 
sile, and were in waters virgin to us both. Ele- 
mental cliffs rose on either hand, headland sue- 

345 



346 THE LAURENTIANS 

ceeded headland in the manner of sleeping lions, 
with heads on, monstrous paws, and overhead a 
sky of wind-washed blue spoke of inexorable 
space. We flew over the opaque water like a 
man-o'-war bird, questing in silence. 

It is hard to tell the facts about a place with- 
out being stupid, yet to leave half unsaid is unjust. 
About Chicoutimi, about Grand Bale (another 
name to relieve the monotony of calling my late 
asylum Ha! Ha!, Bagotville, or St. Alphonse all 
the time), about L' Anse St. Jean, and Descente 
des Femmes there is a lot of historic interest, and 
you can find it in a French chronicle, '*Le Sague- 
nay," by Arthur Buies. He gives the little gos- 
sipy facts that make history interesting such as 
that the ice did n 't go out of Ha ! Ha ! until May 
25 in 1838, the year when a society of twenty-one 
men penetrated this region "pour exploiter la 
foret et d' y faire le commerce de hois, la culture 
de la terre, ayant ete strictement def endue par la 
Compagnie de la Baie d' Hudson qui regnait alors 
en souveraine sur ces contrees sauvages." The 
unabated ardor of those early dollar-seekers does 
not seem to have differed much from our brisk 
search for cash at the present time. It is very 
hard to appear poetic to the just historian at any 
time, be you Croesus or Carnegie. But at any 
rate, if you read Buies, the virtues of St. 
Alphonse (H. H. B.; G. B. ; or B.) shine out 



EPICS IN STONE 347 

through the rubbish of woodpulp left upon his 
shores and correct the impressions given by this 
attenuated chronicle. I do not want to be un- 
just; nor yet a mere directory. 

It was late in the afternoon when the continu- 
ally ascending escarpments on the starboard side 
of the out-flowing stream, culminated in the great 
sight toward which my gaze had been fixed ever 
since I had thought of this trip — Cape Trinity 
and Cape Eternity. There they rose, afar off, 
their shadow-ward sides already sunk in purple, 
although the afternoon still poured its molten 
gold from the round crucible of the sun. 

We were paddling slowly now, and near shore ; 
for when the Saguenay tide comes in, it races up 
the middle in greatest strength. Being in the bow 
no object interposed itself between me and the 
ever-heightening goal. No mark of civilization 
was to be seen along either shore. No sail broke 
the fine line of the on-flowing river. No transient 
commotion of humanity intruded on this epic 
setting of the earth's great drama. And with me 
was, of all my friends, the very one to whom the 
echo of the past from those cliffs spoke in most 
comprehensible tones. For Fred, despite the 
revenge that civilization had taken on him for 
humoring her, a revenge expressed in starched 
collars and office labors and intercourse with 
lawyers, this Fred was still knit to the wilds by 



348 THE LAURENTIANS 

many a savage thew. He had not spoken for an 
hour, and I knew that he was listening to the 
voices of a past millennial, 

I think civilization is the most maligned of all 
our ideas because we confuse her two aspects: 
there is the civilization that gives and the civiliza- 
tion that takes away, the civilization of culture 
and that of compulsion. We think of the civilized 
land as the promised land, when often it is only 
the promising. If hell is paved with good inten- 
tions, I am sure it is walled with pretensions, 
the false gods of civiHzation which we are bade 
worship. To have one's hfe invaded and diluted 
by the wash of other people's fancies scarcely com- 
mends itself to him who would make himself free, 
that his genius might succeed in him. A fash- 
ion-plate civilization demands that one lead a 
water-color life. But this is liable to be painted 
out by the next criticism. It had hurt me to see 
Fred come to town and color his inborn talents to 
the occasion that civilization demanded. For he 
had been born with talents that far outstripped 
the common. But in this mountain setting Fred 
came back. We ceased paddling and let our mo- 
mentum carry us into the basalt-colored shadow. 

I have known great cliff-moments. Once I lay 
on my back in Switzerland and looked up along 
the gray stupendous distances of the Wetterhorn. 
Once the grim walls of the Hardanger Fiord rose 



EPICS IN STONE 349 

to heaven before me till the heart cried 
' ' Enough. ' ' Many times I have sat opposite that 
majesty of stone in our Indian Pass, the seldom 
seen Wallface of the Adirondacks, and thought 
that, compared with its soaring cornices, its lean- 
ing battlements, now gloomy with storm and 
again ghostly with moonlight, all other precipices 
would leave me unamazed. But when we came 
opposite the Bay of Eternity I knew that to those 
three great memories was being added a fourth. 

To get that picture as we saw it, you must im- 
agine yourself in our canoe, a tiny breathing 
thing encircled by a vast and breathless world. 
Behind, we were conscious of an amphitheater of 
savagery — jutting headlands, green bays, and 
sullen river. But what lay before absorbed all 
thought: Cape Trinity; then the parapets of 
heaven receding into a sea of gold ; then a shadow- 
laden gulf; and last, Cape Eternity. This was 
great panorama. 

Here nature was for once art. Here lay the 
structure of all musical composition: the bold 
statement of a theme, the wandering into by-paths 
of loveliness, and tragedy and the return again, 
made, by that wandering, clear. It is the three- 
fold progress of a life — first the wonder, then the 
working out, and finally the coming to one's own. 

Undoubtedly Cape Trinity, mounting from the 
mystery at its base, in three bold terraces clear- 



350 THE LAURENTIANS 

cut against the north, to the very peak of wonder, 
was the nuclear spectacle. Again and again our 
eyes came back to its gray sublimity. Thence, 
like the rim of a far-seeing citadel, the lofty ram- 
parts of the Laurentian range filed westward into 
the clear evening light. This had never been told 
me. The world's best adjectives had been di- 
rected at the clitf ; but this even more astounding 
march of scarp and forest-interval had not been 
mentioned. Its lofty rhythm of valley, peak and 
valley, peak and valley, into the elevated plateau- 
lands of the west, was the sublime sight. For 
sheer beauty perhaps the ravine, occupied by fir- 
forest and the Eternity River, claimed my affec- 
tion. And then affection was changed to auster- 
ity by Cape Eternity, solid, huge, imaginably 
proud even in the face of the Almighty. These 
two vast bluffs were the dual arms of a Ti- 
tan's throne. At the sight of this great wall, 
rising a sheer third of a mile from the dark water, 
the heart's elation came back and one's spirit re- 
joiced. It was easy to think large things before 
them. But it was no easier there than otherwhere 
totally to dis-enmesh one's self from the flesh and 
stand, spirit-wise, upon those peaks. 

We decided to camp for the night near the 
mouth of the Eternity River. It was rather a stu- 
pendous site for the mere frying of eggs and 
washing of socks. But the Rock of Ages has got 



EPICS IN STONE 351 

used to being hacked at by philosophers, and spit 
on by the profane. We thought a little honest in- 
cense from a cook-fire would not be out of place. 

Of course the Government has leased out the 
Eternity River; but we caught our fish just at 
its mouth where we presumed they were unrented. 
I expect to find that the balsam is Heaven's na- 
tional tree. Certainly it grew a more celestial 
exuberance in that sacred spot than anywhere else 
in Canada. I do not remember that we talked 
much at supper. 

Before dark had issued from our aerial cavern 
and engulfed the rest of that untoubled scene we 
got into the canoe again with the intention of 
loitering on the turning tide to get the full effect 
of our high habitation. As yet there was no star. 
There was no wind. No voice came from the un- 
struggling waters. The giant rock rose into the 
coming night, and the last glow glinted back from 
the glassy waters which it could not penetrate. 
Those waters seemed the essence of unshapen 
night — dark, troubled and impenetrable depths, 
the Lethe of the ancients come to the earth's sur- 
face with all its deadly power. 

Under the eaves of Trinity one lost sight of the 
white statue erected by some grateful invalid to 
the Virgin who cured him. No place seems ex- 
empt from man's self -imposition. 

Under the eaves of Trinity also, one lost sight 



352 THE LAURENTIANS 

of the world. We sat there, hardly whispering, 
holding to the original rock, universal Adam's 
rib, amazed into silence. Twilight changed to 
dark. The pauseless flood stole gently by. 
Above, a cataract of gray fell from higher than 
the eye could gage. And above that stars shone 
like islands in an illimitable sea. 

At such times, in such a place, one may light 
cigarettes, but the circles, that one blows, revolve 
around those answerless, grave topics that befit. 
Leaning back in the canoe it seemed as if we 
could hear the universe marching, maldng its ap- 
pointed progress to the triumphal music of the 
gods. The stars with invisible feet, the forest 
with upreaching arms, the creeping river in its 
mysterious course, each was going its once-chosen 
way, with a singing heart, following the footsteps 
of the Eternal. It also seemed, in that half-light, 
as if a man need not find his way too hard if he 
but let himself go. I said as much to Fred who 
was so beset by diverse opportunities. 

*'A man 's been put here for something," said 
he, "and that 's certain. But how does he find 
out what for? That *s pretty uncertain." 

"Well, we Ve been directed to the ant. Have 
you ever watched one?" 

"Sure. The little beggar never stops to think. 
Is that what you recommend?" 

"Hardly. I recommend his faith in getting 




Photograph hy Walter Rutherford. 



Cape Trinity. 



EPICS IN STONE 353 

there. He keeps going, touching this opportunity 
with his antennae, and then that, until something 
in the aspect of the thing matches the instinct for 
that aspect in him, and then, even if it is over a 
lofty pebble or through an impenetrable clover- 
patch, he carries on. He has all the divine dis- 
content of a great poet before he is sure, and all 
the satisfaction after. And he is certainly an ex- 
ample of zeal." 

''Can you remember when you were an ant?" 
asked the Indian. 

"I can't remember so many lives back as 
that. I can't even remember when I met you 
before." 

''But we have known each other," he said 
seriously; "otherwise all this could not have hap- 
pened so soon. It took lives of understanding. 
Don't you think?" 

"That 's where my practical sagacity doesn't 
let me think," I said. "When I was being intro- 
duced to the ways of Shakspere by a man who 
knew his ways, a great scholar named Francis 
Gummere, I was astounded to be shown how little 
the man who understood life so well indulged in 
dreaming of the past, the future. The past is un- 
discovered causes, the future unforseeable results, 
and there you are. The present is the sole con- 
cern." 

"Then my ancestors who lived in the present 



354 THE LAURENTIANS 

were right, and you Americans who live for the 
future are wrong. ' ^ 

''You are making the usual mistake of consider- 
ing the extremes. Americans are not mere 
storers for the future, not mere misers. They 
spend life lavishly, and pass the impulse on. 
Americans make good ants." 

We talked a lot more incoherent stuff, quasi- 
philosophy that is such a pleasant sedative, which 
yet sinks down and tickles some brain-cells into 
the wriggles, the results of which flower later. 
We touched on what Fred could recall of the old 
beliefs in Manitou, and that spirit-land which is 
never far away. Without knowing it our canoe 
carried us away from the rock-ledge out into the 
stream, and down. And when we had said our 
say, silence and the redoubtable mystery closed 
over us again. The only necessity seemed faith; 
and faith seemed easy beneath the wide sanity 
of those skies. 

Somehow the summer ^s events, the extraor- 
dinary meetings, the succession of coincidences 
had strengthened mine. It was as if I had been 
able to catch, just out of the corner of my eye, 
Providence planning for me. Shades of Moody 
and Sankey! Yet so many beautiful things had 
happened, such huge outcomes from such scarce- 
chosen beginnings that anybody schooled to a 
little observation could hardly call it chance. 



EPICS IN STONE 355 

My sillinesses had seeded in, due miseries, my acts 
of virtue flowered in such large reward that, be- 
neath the justice of those marching skies, it 
seemed impossible to praise enough the Creator 
for the motive-power in things, and for the tracks 
that kept them straight. At last I could listen to 
that chief musician, David of the Psalms, and 
agree. 

Only the greatest souls could have endured to 
be alone in that place, in which we slept, and I 
was thankful to have my friend with me ; thank- 
ful too that he was one to whom that passion of 
solemn beauty was meaningful, if not easy to un- 
derstand or utter. From beneath the delicate 
fronds of a hemlock beneath which we made our 
bed, and which housed us in a way from the too 
stark magnificence, we could look out on the huge 
night. Across the Saguenay the savage amphi- 
theaters of risen shores had become one with 
mystery. On either hand the great portals to our 
bay rose beyond our ability to see, like altars to 
nature's God. A star or two shone through the 
green roof, HEs seal to a deed of unweariable 
beauty. And at our feet ran the stream and, save 
us ourselves, the only unsleeping thing, the age- 
long symbol of life. As sleep came upon me I 
thought again of its youthful fallow years in the 
basin of Lake St. John, of its first maturity of pas- 
sion there in the rapids of La Grand Decharge, 



356 THE LAURENTIANS 

of its first disillusionment at Chicoutimi. 
Strange parallel to all our lives; true and 
real, if not especially novel, figure of com- 
parison! And, sleepier yet, I vaguely wondered 
what would correspond to these great Capes in 
my adventure, and where would my craft, sail- 
ing on the broadening, deepening stream, already 
brackish with experience, first taste the bitter 
salt and know the end. Perhaps it was because 
of that great granite calm, that lucid infinite peace 
above, that it did not disturb me: and this I re- 
member from either a drowsy or a dreamy mo- 
ment; I remember feeling sure, whatever form 
our immortality did take, that we should not cease 
sailing when we reached the sea. 



CHAPTER XXni 

TADOUSAC AND THEREABOUTS 

''T ES Bondages effectue en 1830 par le 
1 4 capitaine Bayfield de la marine royale 
d 'Angleterre ont corrigee les exaggerations qui 
attribuaient a la riviere Saguenay une prof ound- 
eur de quinze cent, de dix-huit cent, et meme de 
deux mille pieds en plus d' endroit, mais la masse 
du public a persiste dans son erreur, qui est de- 
venue ajourd'hui une sorte de tradition." So 
says Arthur Buies in ''Le Saguenay." 

It 's a poor lake or river that has n't some tra- 
dition of that sort, to wit : that there 's some cor- 
ner of it that is miles deep, without bottom in 
fact, and probably connected by funnel with 
Avernus. Of course the statement, uttered with 
awe and listened to with credulity, that "they 
haven't found bottom yet," is about as signifi- 
cant as would be the remark about an invalid, 
' ' They have n 't found his appendix yet. ' ' They 
haven't looked for it; that's all. In either 
case it seems a pity to hunt, and I 'm sorry that 
the deepest part of the Saguenay has been found 

357 



358 THE LAUREN TIANS 

— only 167 fathoms — and that is nowhere near 
the Capes, but five miles above Tadousac. But 
since this has been revealed, like that other un- 
fortunate discovery that the earth is no longer 
safe and flat, there seems slight use in repeating 
the fable. Steamboat folder-writers might copy. 
Then there 's another superstition that 's been 
rather overworked: the pretty but unveracious 
thought that the Saguenay is made of ink. Bay- 
ard Taylor, I think it was, in one of his introspec- 
tive moments called it ' ' the River of Death ' ' ; and 
since death, to our nursemaid minds, is like jump- 
ing down a sooty chimney instead of the opening 
of doors to a great light, all the writers who have 
gone into their staterooms to hunt up adjectives 
about the river (instead of looking at it) have tried 
to outvie each other in smutting up the rainbow 
that the river makes. ''Yon ebon flood" is the 
favorite; ''the swarthy stream" and "somber 
torrent" tie for second; and, one is surprised to 
find, "pitchy tide" is used only once. Here is 
what the tourist, sensitized to a state of nerves by 
the advertiser's pen, is told to be on the lookout 
for, as he nears old Trinity: 

Located midway between Chicoutimi and Tadousac, 
the very climax of all that is awful and awe-inspiring, 
rises that elevated cliff Eternity, and its sister pre- 
cipice Trinity with its three elevations (hence the 
name) above the sinister flood. As the tourist gazes 



TADOUSAC AND THEREABOUTS 359 

up the unbroken steep it appears as if it might fall 
over and crush the steamer. The murky waters lave 
its base as they have for uncounted ages, their sable 
shade being caused by the stupendous depths of a mile 
and a half, indicating no ordinary channel. The 
steamer, proceeding for thirty miles on this same ebon 
flood, lands the tourist at Chicoutimi, where time will 
be given. . . . 

It 's all there, you see ; the depth, the dark- 
ness, and the distance. All the adjectives are not 
yet gone, however ; at least no one has used cho- 
colate-colored, Ethiopian, or nigrescent. And 
very few, apparently, have ever seen the river ex- 
cept at night. Certainly there was nothing dingy 
about the ''awful heights," the ''adamantine 
walls," or the "awesome depths" when dawn 
shone down upon Beauvais and me from the tre- 
mendous east. A splash of rose, a flood of gold, 
and then the stream had re-donned its normal 
silver. It spoke to us of the earlier earth with 
which its youth had been, but in tones of God's 
calm and tireless beauty. And the only gloom I 
felt was from the fact that Fred must get him back 
to Montreal before many more tides. 

It is strange what a weight of beauty one can 
carry without feeling the burden. We left the 
Bay of Eternity that morning laden with invisible 
gifts. I was glad that a mutual reticence 
sealed our lips, and that a milder excellence of 
scene greeted us as we dropped down from the 



360 THE LAURENTIANS 

stream, for an increasing wonder would have been 
too much. 

Fred decided to wait for the noon boat at 
L' Anse St. Jean, and there I determined to stay 
a while. Barring Tadousac it is the most pictur- 
esque of all the bays on the Saguenay, its retiring 
cove face to face with the high mountainous in- 
terior of the Pare Laurentide. Distantly rise the 
great wooded range of Eternity and Trinity, and 
their sister elevations, until the eye is lost in the 
tumult of peaks and gorges. Nearer, a white 
church, a road, meadows, and an. islet invite do- 
mestic feelings. I was now conscious of hunger, 
and remembering that the mail pilot, Lavoie, had 
told me his mother Uved here, I looked her up. 
Like son, like mother — cheerful, able, hospitable. 
I was soon at home in the kitchen. 

Indeed Madame Lavoie was the perfect woman, 
as judged by habitant standards. Having borne 
thirteen children she was still granted strength 
to care for them, her house, and her husband's 
work. After dressing herself and assisting a 
half-dozen others, she would wash the kitchen 
floor, arrange the breakfast-table, make a cake or 
so, mend the cut fingers and bind the bruised eyes 
of her assembling flock, prepare three-quarters of 
a dozen for school, serve me, and then wTite up her 
husband's freight business, since he cannot read, 



TADOUSAC AND THEREABOUTS 361 

after which she was ready to begin the heavy work 
of the day. I know all this because much of it 
went on whilst I was shaving by the family mirror 
in the kitchen. 

My voyage on the excursion-steamer to Tadou- 
sac was accomplished in the bow-most chair, and 
divided between looking at the lessening majesty 
of the shore and listening to the ludicrous com- 
ment of two typical tourist ladies, honest school- 
ma'ams both. 

*'My, I 'm glad I got through dinner in time. I 
wouldn't have missed this for anything. Look, 
do you think that 's a beaver?" (It was a stick 
of cord-wood, beaver having a distaste for ocean 
water.) 

*'It may be. See, it 's moving." 

''I declare it is. Julia ought to see that. 
Where do you suppose she is?" 

**I left her at the table. That salad was good, 
wasn't it? See that boat there. And there 's 
only one man in it." 

**No, he can't be left alone to manage all by 
himself. It looks like it was going to rain too." 

**Do you think we '11 have to pay for that extra 
meal at Chicoutimi? I asked the purser about it 
and he said — " 

*'0 Caroline, see that high mountain over 
there!" 



362 THE LAURENTIANS 

''It 's wonderful, isn't it?" 

''No, not there, there 's the one I mean behind 
that other." 

"Wonderful, wonderful. If I were you, Hattie, 
I 'd try that shampoo with olive-oil. It 's won- 
derful for the hair." 

For hours they went on, and so did the boat, 
the difference being that it got somewhere. But 
they were getting their money's worth, and, bless 
them, would talk about the trip for years to come, 
and it 's appreciation after all that makes the 
world go round. I liked them, and wished they 
could have sensed the real land through which 
they were being touristed, I wished that they 
could have sat down to an old Norman bowl of 
confiture and cream, have listened to Madame la 
Mere tell a tale of her youth to the accompaniment 
of the spinning-wheel treadle, have fingered 
and envied the household treasures of needle 
and dye, have heard the men, early in from the 
fields, sing of times gone glimmering, but sweetly 
gone. 

Ste. Marguerite Eiver flows into the Saguenay 
between Gibraltars, below which the attractive 
houses of Ste. Marguerite are grouped. After 
passing La Boule, a sort of petrified Neptune's 
head raised above the water, we reached Tadou- 
saa As an example of the magic of Frencli 
names, consider the difference of sound between 



TADOUSAC AND THEREABOUTS 363 

L ' Anse a 1 'Eau and Water Bay, the place where 
one disembarks. 

There are three things that I earnestly recom- 
mend to any one stepping out upon the wharf at 
Tadousac. First, get in one of the little horse- jit- 
neys and ask the driver to take you to the pension 
located highest on the hill; for only in a pension 
do you get the view and the flavor of the place. 
Second, wander down to the store, where you will 
be served by a perfect-mannered youth, and ask 
him for the pamphlet on Tadousac and the Indian 
chapel by Dean Harris, an appreciatively written 
account of the place which is invaluable. And 
third, fix no time for your departure. Timeless- 
ness is the essence of the place. Tadousac is 
compounded of timelessness and beauty and that 
storied glamour which makes history in Canada 
one long romance. 

If I were a Canadian writer, hunting the altar 
of national inspiration, I would go sit on the gran- 
nite boulder at the point where Saguenay and 
St. Lawrence meet. The mysterious stream upon 
the north bears him its wealth of romance. The 
great gray-glinting river from the west offers 
him a panorama of all the numbered ages, the 
time of Basque and Breton, of Jacques Cartier 
and Champlain. And when he has tired of the 
rivers, and of the black-forested point, of the 
blue Laurentian ranges and the white villages that 



364 THE LAURENTIANS 

are strung like beads on the rosary of humanity, 
he can gaze down into the little harbor of Tadou- 
sac itself, where on the morning of May 24, 1603, 
Samuel de Champlain anchored La Bonne Renom- 
mee. The population of Tadousac numbers only 
a few hundred. I suspect that they resemble 
other people in the main, but their pastor says 
that with them ^'the laws of life are holy, the 
richest are poor, and the poorest live in abun- 
dance." They must learn contentment with 
beauty, for that they have always with them 
when winter deprives them of most else. Cer- 
tainly I know that they are courteous and honest. 
They are not bowled over by the latest frivolities ; 
indeed, they are still talking about the Glacial 
Age in Tadousac. 

In addition to the memories of Champlain 's 
craft there were ghosts of Montagnais war-can- 
oes and Jesuit fishing dories and French war- 
galleons in the bay. And right among them rode 
that most graceful of all motor-driven things, a 
private yacht. Its lovely lines contrasted with 
the granite ruggedness of the harbor's rim, its 
white with the dark of firs. It was as if a sea-gull 
had settled on her dark nest and would soon fly 
again. I was in that midway state of mind which 
has not quite forgotten the world in favor of the 
Creator; in other words, I had not quite become 
a Tadousackian. The yacht somehow spoke of 



TADOUSAC AND THEREABOUTS 365 

Europe when I ought to be thinking of the wild 
men, the fur markets, the cahn-faced Jesuits. 
The boat did not make a discordant note; it 
was too beautiful for that. But it was like a 
swallow in the late autumn that sang of spring 
when one must make one's bed for winter. I 
tried to fasten my gaze on the Indian chapel, the 
^'oldest house of worship, framed in wood, in the 
Dominion of Canada,'^ for it was built in. 1747. 
The yacht had no antiquity about it; the oldest 
church-bell in Canada wasn't on the yacht; the 
yacht had not harbored three centuries of wor- 
shiping Indians, and on it I most certainly would 
not find the oil-paintings and rehgious adorn- 
ments mentioned by the venerable Marie de 1' In- 
carnation. But nevertheless my eyes would steal 
from that beautiful white chapel to the beautiful 
white boat — and stay there. 

**What nonsense, sir!" I said sternly to myself. 
**Get thee behind me, yacht. Consider the pri- 
mordial age. Think of the earthquake of 1663. 
At least pay some attention to the cemetery, 
where the bones of the white man and the red are 
undistinguishable. ^ ' 

For some reason even the cemetery, charming 
as it was, did not wholly divorce my thoughts 
from yachts and flesh-pots, for I had had a pretty 
big dose of the wilds. I longed for a little of 
that sort of conversation that goes with yachts — ■ 



366 THE LAURENTIANS 

conversation interspersed with food not wholly de- 
rivative from pig. 

Byron, somewhere in ''Don Juan," has a good 
recipe for untoward thoughts. He says : 

A little cold water on the bust 
Is just the thing to banish lust — 

or words of that ilk, and I judged possibly a swim 
might clear my mind of worldly things — and put 
me back a century or two where I ought to be. So 
I went around the granite cliff a little farther, 
stripped, and waded gingerly out along the sea- 
weedy rocks and stepped into the first gray pool 
of spring-clear water. 

Jumping shrimps ! but it was cold. The Glacial 
Age must have been only about two days gone. 
I wondered how often the Jesuits bathed. They 
never mention it in "The Belations." And now 
I stood there wondering how I could get wet with 
the least pain, watching the current boil around 
the corner. I noted with relief that swimming 
was probably dangerous. But still one hates to 
seem a coward to one's self. I took another step 
seaward. My legs were already numb, were al- 
ready congealing into their final crystals — crys- 
tals that might look beautiful under the magni- 
fying-glass, but which felt out of place while the 
upper half of me was still alive. I hunted a 
place where I could dive without testing the orig- 



TADOUSAC AND THEREABOUTS 367 

inal granite with my head. And dove. And 
came up with a snort. But, by those shrimps 
again, it wasn't my snort. The noise, a horrible 
wheezing sort of explosion, came from a dozen 
yards away, and I saw a long moving arc of lea- 
ther-colored sea-serpent playfully blow the spume 
from its nose. It' gave another tempestuous 
sneeze and disappeared. It disappeared with a 
fearful flirt of a forked tail that waved plainly 
au revoir and not farewell. I scrambled out of the 
St. Lawrence, chilled not only to the bone but way 
beyond. Possibly it may only have been a gram- 
pus ; but certainly the cost of ridding my thoughts 
of yachts was too high. Besides it occurred to 
me that on the yacht were probably dry towels, 
I sunned myself back to circulation and walked 
back to my pension, hungry for company. The 
wondrous calm of the place, the reposeful beauty, 
the companionship of the dead, all these left me 
cold, though not as cold as the sea-serpent. 

''Good Lord!" I said to myself, ''now that 
you Ve reached the pinnacle of things, appre- 
ciate it." 

But appreciation never came that way. I 
drowsed off that night out of key with 1600. 
Since then I have learned to accept real hunches ; 
for they are only Providence tugging at one's 
hand. 



CHAPTER XXIV 

LE PEEE DU SAGUENAY 

YES, sirs, it pays to follow up one's hunches, 
when convinced that they are not mere mir- 
ages of the liver. 

The iiext day was a sultry Sabbath. Forest- 
fires back in the mountains filled the sky with 
haze. I was talking on the gallery with the pen- 
sionaire about them, and that topic led to forests, 
and they to Le Pere du Saguenay, a William 
Price whose lumber industry had been the means 
of colonizing the region of the Saguenay. What 
httle I was able to learn seemed as romantic to 
me as any tales of the voyageurs, and when I 
asked where I could get the rest of the story the 
old man said, "Why don 't you ask Sir William? 
He lives down, there," and pointed out the house. 

Anybody with an uncalloused social sense balks, 
I should suppose, at chasing titles. But I am 
bolder in my flannel shirt and army shoes than 
usual, and there was something desperate about 
the stifling inertia of the day, something impel- 
ling in the fact that five minutes away was the 

368 



LE PERE DU SAGUENAY 369 

grandson of the Saguenay. I rang up the house. 
He was at home. 

''Certainly," in the most hospitable voice pos- 
sible, "I am just going down to my yacht. Can 
you meet me there in half an hour?" Oh, Provi- 
dence ! 

The hand-shake with the well set-up, fine-look- 
ing man on the sunny dock inaugurated for me an 
era of enjoyment and set a record in liberahty 
hard to beat. The pleasures of a yacht, the pri- 
vileges of an aeroplane, and the hospitality of a 
gentleman's home — and these to a perfect 
stranger — ^were a mark of large-heartedness, 
surely. But what touched me most was that Sir 
William Price should recognize some use to the 
region in my errand, and assume with private 
generosity a few of the amenities which the Pro- 
vincial Government had declined to consider. Of 
course this incident, in my individual case, is 
merely a microscopic illustration of the reason 
why lavish England is an empire of the world, 
while frugal France still sits by the family hearth, 
where the hoarded sous are buried. "Bread 
upon the waters" finds no place in French 
practices. In Sir William I had come upon a 
man who could look beyond his hand. 

''The first William Price," said his grand- 
son, ' ' came out to Canada in 1810 from Hertford- 
shire. Napoleon had established the Continental 



370 THE LAURENTIANS 

Blockade. Access to the Scandinavian countries 
was interdicted. So England sent my grand- 
father, who was only twenty-one, as her represen- 
tative to see about purchasing masts for the Ad- 
miralty. 

*' Quebec seemed to the young man so rich in 
opportunity that, after some experiments on the 
Ottawa, he moved to Chicoutimi in 1830 and be- 
gan what was to be his actual hfe-work. He was 
a tall, thin, spare man well adapted to a thin, 
spare country, and he thought more of the coun- 
try than he did of himself. He was a great 
walker, (in fact he had walked to Halifax in the 
War of 1812), and with his dog- team bound the 
isolated camps on the Saguenay together by his 
winter visits. His idea was to colonize. 

"He estabhshed industrial concerns at about 
thirty places, including Tadousac, Bale des Roch- 
ers, Riviere Noire, Petit Saguenay, L' Anse St. 
Jean, L' Anse a Pelletier, Grand Bale, Chicoutimi, 
Riviere de Moulin, married, had fourteen children, 
and died in 1867 in Quebec, aged seventy-eight, a 
real pioneer, 'surrounded by his children' as the 
papers say, and enjoying the respect of his fel- 
low-citizens." 

A detailed biography of the first Mr. Price 
would be really a hand-book on how to colonize. 
From the beginning progress has seemed to fol- 
low the Prices, and prosperity with it, and as 



LE PERE DU SAGUENAY 371 

neither of these comes without the exercise of 
gray matter and red muscle, the story of that 
young man's single-handed manipulation of the 
wild bush into colonies is veritably thrilling. He 
fought famine, fought discouragement, fought the 
Hudson's Bay Co., fought the climate and dis- 
tance and lack of precedent. On his side was 
ranged the English tradition of success honestly 
brought about. His extra-personal assets were 
an untapped timber-wealth, and a corps of habi- 
tant workers who had faith in his foresight and 
integrity. The rest was time's affair. 

It is very easy to slight the achievements of the 
past. The modern man, with all the equipment 
of civilization at his hand, is usually content to 
have reared a family of two or three, and is over- 
joyed if they turn out well. If in addition he has 
a country house and has planted a few acres in 
vegetables and orchards and can take his case 
among them on Saturday afternoons, he is among 
a blest minority. At his death he is lamented, 
even by the servants who have to seek other sit- 
uations. , , 

Consider then the prowess of this man Price, 
England's representative at twenty-three, who 
added a territory as large as France to Canada *s 
domain, and whose genius for organization peo- 
pled it with the prosperous habitant. Consider 
what powerful qualities he must have had to keep 



372 THE LAURENTIANS 

these beneficiaries in a state of gratitude — benefi- 
ciaries, what is more, both of another race and 
another religion than his own. Many a time the 
seeds advanced to the farmers, the loans granted, 
the judicial niceties exercised, maintained the 
man's province where in similar situations to-day 
all the pother of parliaments can scarcely do as 
well. In short, William Price performed a task 
which the Government of to-day finds quite wor- 
thy and demanding of its united efforts, and per- 
formed it well. No wonder he is called Le Pere 
du Saguenay. The House of Price is carrying on 
the tradition. 

It was late before we climbed the hill and I was 
presented to Lady Price and the sons on whom 
the mantle of management will sometime fall. 
Life is energized by contrasts, and it was im- 
mensely stimulating to have fallen from my 
French sohtudes into the fun and sociability of 
an English tea-party. It recalled happy, happy 
days in England where the talk runs round the 
world, and what you are instead of what you 
wear determines your degree of interest for the 
others. Lady Price made one feel that flannel 
shirts were the especial mode for Sunday after- 
noon, and as I listened to the banter and anec- 
dotes of people and the war and England, I had 
all the exhilaration of going from the closed room 
of myself into the crisp outdoors of others' 



LE PERE DU SAGUENAY 373 

gaiety. Lady Price told one anecdote of the dem- 
ocratic habitant Napoleon, who had guided King 
Edward np the Bersimis when, as Prince of 
Wales, he had come out to Canada. Old Napo- 
leon was chosen to guide the late King's brother, 
the Duke of Connaught, up the same stream. The 
guide was full of the old times and when he was 
presented to the Duke, clapped him on the shoul- 
der and said, "J' ai bien connu ton frere." 

A charming Mrs. Powell helped pour tea, and 
it was Miss Powell who got me into a lucky fix. 
Sir William was standing by when she said, ''Are 
you coming up with us on the yacht to-night I" 
I hadn't been invited. I hated to plunge myself 
into loneliness by saying ''No." I ask you, what 
would you have said! 

Eight bells and the darkness of the Styx; for 
sound only the cutting of the water by the white 
prow. We are aproaching the Capes. The talk 
has been with the girls on deck and then with the 
host below, while the spiny nectar of Edinburgh 
ebbs in the glasses. At length they turn in, for 
they 've seen these river reaches many times. 
But I haven't, and after the stirless heat of the 
afternoon it is good to walk the deck and feel the 
chill breath of mid-Saguenay. I talk with the 
captain about fogs and his navigational past. 
The sky is measurelessly thick with quiet, the dis- 



374f THE LAURENTIANS 

tance with dark. The water might be velvet. 
And now they rise, august Eternity, majestic 
Trinity — not as sights, but as feelings, being but 
soft-edged clouds of stone that have settled at 
the portals of the oracle. They bide their time. 
They will see wonders yet. 

The next day the sun rose hot, and, about six 
hours later, so did we. If you are at Chicoutimi 
in summer don't begrudge it its heat. The town 
that sits in a draft from the North Pole most of 
the year needs a week or so of conventional Au- 
gust weather. But anybody expecting to emulate 
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the fiery 
furnace number can go to Chicoutimi for train- 
ing. The difference is unnoticeable. 

Of all the family of Price, I should imagine 
that Major Jack would have most cause to remem- 
ber that muggy Monday. For he conducted a 
cousin from England and myself over the pulp- 
mills at Jonquiere, and while I could forget my 
mopped brow in the novelty of things, the laby- 
rinth of steaming rooms was less than novel to 
the Major by some months' work therein. He 
had learned the business by the only possible 
method, and we ignorami had the results of his 
grasp of the processes handed to us in a way 
graphic enough to make me realize that the turn- 
ing of forests into newspapers is one long drama. 



LE PERE DU SAGUENAY 375 

Nothing impresses my unmechanical wits like 
machinery. Unfortunately, comprehension ceases 
when the processes become more involved than 
those of, say coffee-grinders or safety-razors. 
But the impressiveness remains. I humbly abase 
myself before the genius who gave birth to the 
adding-machine. I feel Kke the lady recently from 
Ireland, who, on being shown a thermometer and 
having its uncanniness explained, exclaimed, 
*'What won 't they being doing next!" So ima- 
gine the effect on me of acres upon acres of ma- 
chinery mobilized to turn wood into material for 
words. Outside was a river floating down a per- 
petual stream of logs. These, sawn, sorted, 
chewed, squeezed, chemicalized, squashed, dried, 
whitened, and rolled, issued in heavy bales of 
news-print ready to be freighted off. The pseu- 
do-human ability of the forest of cogs and rollers 
whence issued the perfected product was simply 
incredible, though the major said it was incredibly 
simple. Sometimes I wish they would take the 
final step, and get the same machine to write the 
editorials. 

At Chicoutimi I was introduced to the flying 
department of the Price Brothers' firm and a 
dilemma in conjunction. ' * Would you like to drop 
down the river on the Albecore with us," said Sir 
William, *'or prefer to fly over some of the 
limits r' In other words would I have some 



376 THE LAURENTIANS 

more fun or further my investigations — disport or 
duty? It is not so often that I have had to choose 
between heaven-hunting on a flying-boat, and a 
house-party on a yacht, that I do the thing easily. 
Sometimes it is a nuisance having obligations to 
one's self. 

And now Patience descended from her monu- 
ment and sat before me as a necessary model ; for 
no sooner had Sir William left me mourning my 
iron will in Chicoutimi than the fires ascended 
and the smoke came. On all sides yellow erup- 
tions from miles of burning bush thickened the 
atmosphere and fenced out the wind. The sun's 
rays struggled through and squatted on the siz- 
zling earth exhausted. The aeroplane was busy 
reporting new fires to the fighters and conveying 
the chief from place to place. Monsieur Guay. 
was away. I was ashamed to go, to knuckle down 
to fate in that fashion. So I hunted up the re- 
sources of Chicoutimi, and came across Philip 
Angers. 

In Angers I found the French-Canadian of the 
city at his best — a young fellow suffering neither 
from moneyitis, that wretched disease of mater- 
ialism which attacks the habitant when he moves 
into town, nor yet from the sleeping-sickness, that 
disease of the country-dweller which slowly turns 
him into a stump. Philip read, thought, acted, 



LE PERE DU SAGUENAY 377 

and retained the best instincts of the old hospi- 
tality. It was he who told me about the Indians 
of Ste. Anne on the high bluff across the river. 

My heartfelt advice to anybody having two 
hours in summer-struck Chicoutimi is to spend 
an hour and fifty minutes of it somewhere else. 
The Queen of the Saguenay is more dazzling from 
afar. From the high cliffs of Ste. Anne she is 
radiant; and while looking at her spires and 
smokestacks one has the additional advantage of 
conversing with veritable chasseurs Montagnais. 
If you desire to be guided back to catch (sight 
of) the caribou which roam in meditative herds 
anywhere from thirty to three hundred miles 
away (depending of whom you are inquiring) ask 
for Paul Niatipi or Joseph Regis. If you don't 
talk Montagnais, take a French dictionary along, 
for these gentlemen know several languages, but 
none of them is English. The high street of Ste. 
Anne which leads up to the bluff that overlooks a 
goodly section of the adjacent world is one of the 
most repaying climbs I know. 

One morning the wind turned, blew from the 
unburnable sea, and drove back the wall of smoke. 
Captain Quigley, whose courtesy had stood up 
bravely beneath my interrogations for the past 
weeks, telephoned that we should fly at nine. The 
news was more stimulating than sudden fortune 
— than sudden fortune probably is (this is one of 



378 THE LAURENTIANS 

those imaginative similes). At any rate the news 
that one is going to perch on clouds and stroll 
arm-in-arm with lightning — such news is stimula- 
ting. Nearly everybody likes to get down the 
altas and pore over a map ; so imagine what fun 
it is to flow over one. With the additional advan- 
tage of having all the countries life-size and cor- 
rectly tinted. 

For days I had been toying with the pleasant 
problem of deciding where to go : whether to fly 
over Cape Eternity and squelch its towering in- 
solence forever, or to take a turn about the park 
and count the animals as advertised in the Gov- 
ernment prospectuses ; or should I jump the hori- 
zon on the northeast, that range of the Shipshaw 
Mountains which had so long shut in my vision, 
and come, as the map predicted, into a vast no- 
man's land of lakes, strange rivers, and endless 
hills 1 When the time came there was no decision. 
Out we ran on the river, faster, took off, skimmed 
the surface, rose along the cliffs of Ste. Anne, 
looked down into her tree-tops, climbed, and on 
emerging from the town's personal atmosphere 
found ourselves swimming in a sea of mother-of- 
pearl. Smoke, mist, fog, cumulus cloud, forest- 
green, lake-blue, Saguenay gray, and mountain 
distance— all were lit by a shy sun and changed 
by our great speed into a weaving scene of fairy 
opalescence. Obviously the smoke over the in- 



LE PERE DU SAGUENAY 379 

terior barred sightseeing there. So we turned 
once more to the Capes and Tadousac. 

Canada is far ahead of the United States — in 
emptiness. And much of it is still unscorched. 
We climbed and climbed, passed the six thousand 
foot level and emerged from all the smoke. It 
was very cosy in the craft. Instead of being car- 
ried as before in the prow, like an olive in the 
dove's returning beak, I had a small room in the 
middle to myself. There was space for a library ; 
but there have been written very few books suit- 
able for aeroplane reading. Most books have the 
earth-savor too strong. Flight shows up the pet- 
tiness of our divorce fiction, our crawling real- 
isms ; and our romances of the tea-table all imply 
roofs. On the other hand the wide-sea tales, the 
big science that includes the stars, the philos- 
ophers that stand on science — these could be in- 
cluded. But great poetry is the thing. Poets 
begin where planes must stop ; and that satisfies, 
that alone satisfies. 

It was all probably very dull for Captain Quig- 
ley. That is the most disconcerting thing to me 
about aviation; the pilots sicken of ambrosia. 
But he certainly did the skies in my behalf. We 
had risen until the whole Saguenay lay visible 
at one glance beneath us. To the northeast the 
country rose in terraces toward Labrador, the 
Shipshaws holding smoke in their green folds. 



380 THE LAURENTIANS 

while the mountains looked like potato-parings 
fallen on the green apron of Mother Earth. A 
vast bum suggested the Grand Canon of the Colo- 
rado, its reds and browns taking on castellated 
shapes in the distance. Parallel to the Saguenay 
ran the greener canon of the Ste. Marguerite a re- 
gion of majesty and beauty. On the southwest 
lay the great irregular group of rangy plateau 
that was the Laurentide Park. North, the farmed 
country which we had left spread its mild domes- 
tic colors. The St. Lawrence made a python of 
faint pearl across the southern world. 

I am glad that few people see the great Capes 
from above. There was small greatness remain- 
ing. Eternity looked like an otter-slide, Trinity 
the up-throwings of a mole. But the map of which 
they formed the pole was still undimini shingly 
splendid. I traced the Eternity River back to 
the slim lake that gives it birth, and saw innum- 
erable places of beauty on it. I saw a little lake, 
set like a turquoise jewel in Eternity's crown of 
forest. In fact I saw hundreds of lakes whose 
living loveliness was never dreamt of by the mere 
inhabitants of earth. Opposite St. Basile there 
was a huge body of water perched along the rim 
of the palisade but never set down on the map. 
This finding of an infinity of new waters is one of 
the glorious sensations of flight. To be able to 
drop into domains never broached by man — that is 



LE PERE DU SAGUENAY 381 

a superlative delight of the imagination, whether 
the actuality is ever to take place or not. 

Endlessness, wildness, strangeness, beauty, and 
again endlessness — that is Canada. Through the 
hole in the plane's floor I saw sharply focused 
the haunts of beaver and moose, the pools where 
salmon must be, and virgin lakes of trout, and the 
grassy edges of places where ducks were eating 
the wild rice. And then I would gaze beyond the 
ranges and realize that this went on to the Pole, 
with ever the presence of life, ever the absence of 
men. The thought made one as buoyant as light. 
Here was perpetual sanctuary from the pressure 
of things, here the inviolable frontier. Here were 
beauty and strangeness and an endless wilderness 
— Canada's gift to a hiving race. 



CHAPTER XXV 



MOISAN THE TRAPPEB 



SO stole the weeks away. Summer's green 
robe slipped from the stained and shining 
arms of autumn, and I awoke t*o find that the sea- 
son of flies had vanished, and the smoldering seas 
of purple fireweed were blanched and gone. A 
cool wind bore down on wings of silver-blue from 
the North and advised me that if I wanted to com- 
plete my trip I had better forsake my habitant 
pastures and hie me to the source of the St. Mau- 
rice before it froze. 

As far as completing the trip went I had given 
that up. There was no such possibility. No man 
can ever see all Laurentian La^nd and wrap it up 
in the pages of a book. The best I could hope to 
do was to speak of the little I had seen, in as nearly 
a suggestive way as the wind in the firs speaks of 
further north, and let who had ears listen. But 
the River St. Maurice was an obvious necessity 
to even a partial completeness. To reach it I had 
to change cars at Riviere a Pierre. 

The desire of our lives is undemably to enjoy 

382 



MOISAN THE TRAPPER 383 

living. And when I first saw Eiviere a Pierre I 
did n't see how this could be done there. The sta- 
tion, the modest inn, the unobtrusive cottages, the 
naked old nunnery looked to my travel-sated eyes 
about as enticing as a rusty rat-trap. I had no 
desire to read, it was drizzling, and they told me 
that the train to La Tuque would not be along for 
three hours or so. To make me more impatient 
was the fact that on that train were Sally-gay and 
Alice-from- Wonderland, and possibly Fred who 
was going to show the three of us a domain or 
two. Anybody having the chance to refresh him- 
self with one look at either Sally-gay or Alice, to 
say nothing of both together, and having that 
chance postponed for three hours by an incon- 
siderate railroad, is bound to develop a fierce 
irritation. In addition I had not had any 
meals or intermediate light refreshments for 
some while ; I was in no humor to appreciate what 
might have been heroic, if not handsome, in the 
past of Riviere a Pierre. I sat ferociously on the 
very hard-wood bench for a while, and then 
started to stride up and down the platform with 
equal ferocity. 

I had done about three rounds when I passed a 
young fellow loitering along communing with his 
pipe. Something in his appearance arrested even 
my self -pitying mood. The next time I passed I 
gaw what it was, a singularly engaging candor of 



384. THE LAURENTIANS 

countenance, and a singularly handsome suit of 
clothes. The third time I stopped. 

The suit must have cost a lot in London, being* 
one of those soft blue cloths, the sort in which 
Antony would have chosen to woo Cleopatra had 
they been living on the Thames. But my lad had 
grown impatient with the rest of the gentle habili- 
ments that go with suits. He wore no collar, his 
shirt was open far enough to show a stevedore 
chest, his shoes — but it all seemed to enhance his 
naive beauty: the superb head, fine color, steady 
eyes of deepest brown. One knew that this youth 
represented healthy, resourceful manhood before 
a word need be said. 

The easiest way to begin a conversation with 
a French-Canadian is to refer to cigarettes; the 
second is the lumber situation ; the weather comes 
in a delayed third. By the time we had reached 
the weather Moisan and I were old friends, strid- 
ing up and down the drizzly planks together. 
His quiet voice matched the assurance with which 
he seemed accustomed to meet life. 

"Have you been to London?" suggested med- 
dlesome moi, still wondering about that suit. 

''Ah, non." 

''But that,'* I continued, touching the coat, 
"that comes from London." 

"Je P ai achete a Montreal.'^ 

"You are a whisky-runner, then," I said. All 



MOISAN THE TRAPPER 385 

French-Canadians like to be thought capable of 
daring. 

"Ah, non, Monsieur," and he laughed; "furs 
were high last year. ' ^ 

"You take them yourself?" 

He nodded. 

"Near here?" 

"Tres loin, a Abitibi." 

"Who helps you?" 

"Je vais seul, Monsieur." He was started, 
and began to talk. 

I wish I could convey the interest he aroused. 
Here was a young fellow, not over twenty-one, 
self-possessed as Apollo and near as handsome, 
telling me in the calmest possible mann,er that his 
life, eight or nine months of it at least, was spent 
in the wildest sort of wilds, following the oldest 
industry, alone. 

"In which barn will we find the best tea?" said 
I, hoping for real talk. He disavowed responsi- 
bility for the bareness of the houses with a wave 
of the hand and said, "Ste. Thecle is my home; 
we should be there." But we found a cozy room, 
garnished with the usual praiseworthy framed 
mottoes, and gilt-burdened glass, and imbibed tea, 
while I listened to the modest observations on life 
by a youth who was surviving it by virtue of his 
own wits. 

"I trapped the first year with my father," he 



386 THE LAURENTIANS 

said, ''and learned. It was not hard. I go up on 
the Transcontinental next week. It is late now; 
bnt my father wished to go to New York and I 
wished not to leave before he has returned. I 
and my two dogs go in by canoe, for days and 
days, with new traps and ammunition and flour. 
I have a cabin about ninety miles from the rail- 
way, and there I have great comfort. I run trap- 
lines in several directions and have little shelters 
in two other spots. I go twenty-thirty miles a day 
sometimes. It is to my taste more than city life." 

"Are you never lonely?" I asked. 

''Ah, non" was a real assurance; "there is 
no time. When I am on the line I am thinking 
of what will be in my next trap, or how I am go- 
ing to catch that fox who is shy or that fisher 
who got away. And when I am in my cabin I 
cook my meals and smoke and think what I will 
do the next day, and the next summer. And I 
sleep. It is a good life. I have no worries; I 
know about the future ; I am happy. ' '' 

This looks prosaic in print ; to me it said much. 
The boy was already a philosopher at the age 
when most fellows are wondering what in thunder 
they had better start thinking about doing. He 
could give reasons for his happiness and rules 
for its continuation. Yet it was not mere milk- 
soft contentment. To face blizzards and the 
possibility of wolves, to compete with Indians 



MOISAN THE TRAPPER 387 

on their own territory and at their own game, to 
face the chance of accident with fortitude — this 
is not being soft. Nor did he lack the divine fire. 
He told me that he had found the girl for him and 
would be married next summer. He appreciated 
cities, and liked Montreal because it was full of 
parks and people. He was interested a little in 
affairs, and had sent his father down to see Car- 
pentier fight. He had earned more than three 
thousand dollars the winter of high prices. This 
boy had actually wrested from the silent places 
more hard cash than most self-esteeming school- 
teachers receive at the climax of their careers. 
''It is a good life,'* he had said, and I was begin- 
ning to see why; to see also how boy trappers 
could wear London serge. 

Moisan did not have a sentimental regard for 
the Indian. ''It is better to walk on the trail 
behind," he had said with a gleam in his brown 
eyes that recalled an incident. "They are jeal- 
ous of their women," he added; "one dare not so 
much as look at them. Jealous, but capable. 
Yes, they are very capable, but dirty. They do 
not bother to cook bread either. They eat only 
meat. ' ' 

I asked him what he had to eat. 

"I do not starve myself," he said, the tea 
already tinging his poise with a little gaiety. 
"Do I look as though I starved myself? I have 



388 THE LAURENTIANS 

partridges with my bread, and moose-steak is 
better than beef, while beaver goe.s better than 
chicken. Fish? No, in winter fish is good only 
for the baiting of traps." 

^^What skins do you take?" I asked. **Tell me 
in the order of their value."' 

*' First, black fox. He is the most of value. I 
have to pay a royalty to the Government of fif- 
teen dollars for every black fox I take.- Then 
silver fox, and a friend of theirs, the blue, and 
the cross fox and sometimes the red, though the 
white is common too in the North. The otter and 
the beaver are next, and the same value about, 
with the fisher perhaps. Less valuable than the 
fisher are the marten, wolf, and wolverine. You 
have heard of carcajou. Monsieur? I do not 
want him about, even for the pleasure of catching 
him. As for bear and deer and moose and cari- 
bou, I do not need to get more than one a winter. 
Then comes lynx and skunk and mink and ermine. 
Then in the last lot comes muskrat and squirrel 
and rabbit and weasel. I do not trap mice," he 
added showing his fine teeth. I think that noth- 
ing impresses one so much as teeth in Quebec, 
where dentists have never ventured and the tooth- 
brush is at rest. 

We talked freely now across our international 
tea-table, and I gained new admiration for the 
French-Canadian the while. The generation of 



MOISAN THE TRAPPER 389 

FranQois Tremblay, Philip Angers, Oscar Moi- 
san will carry far. Who can say that the world 
is not progressing? I pictured Moisan and my- 
seK in our cave-man days; he making a rude 
snare of whale-gut at the door of his ocean-facing 
cave, myself drawing journalistic figures on the 
lintel. To-day Moisan still made snares, I still 
wrote of my contemporaries, but both had gained 
in art, both were living in touch with nations in- 
stead of families merely, both constantly enlarg- 
ing the storehouse of our sympathies. Progress, 
it seems to me, is merely a finer art of living, a 
constant growth of genial understanding. When 
we have got enough self-control to greet Mars 
without instantly desiring to depopulate it, I 
don't doubt that the way will open up. Inter- 
racial concord may follow international peace, 
and after that is time enough for interplanetary 
relations. Meanwhile it is something for the in- 
dividual to have established a life of progressive 
harmony for himself, as had Moisan. It is note- 
worthy that he had achieved it by a grouping of 
the fundamentals. 

While we talked the time had run like water. 
For three hours I had lived in the great fur coun- 
try, he had visited town; and both had explored 
the fringes of new personality. I had met the 
kind of man who masters life, he the kind who 
thinks about it, and the meeting had been fruit- 



390 THE LAURENTIANS 

ful. I had got off the train in a prodigious snlk. 
I was to climb on the next elated as one can only 
be who has had a rounded, wholesome, new adven- 
ture, such as in a rare moon le hon Dieu will drop 
into your empty hours if you will but open them. 
After these pages are out of print my good wishes 
will still follow Moisan the trapper. 



CHAPTER XXVI 

ODYSSEY OF THE ST. MAURICE 

Prologue 

TO understand why the rest of my trip, a 
sequence of minor casualties, a comedy of 
errors interpolated with worse, was more refresh- 
ing and memorable than all my previous pilgrim- 
age put together, you must be introduced to 
Sally-gay and Alice-from- Wonderland, the spin- 
ster and matron whom I had inveigled into shar- 
ing the contemplated adventures of the St. 
Maurice with me. 

*' Verity is nudity," says de Musset, which 
accounts for the reason why Sally-gay has never 
told me her age. She hasn't wanted to be nude 
about it. But I have seen her take hills on skis 
which could only be contemplated by youth; and 
at the foot of them utter wisdom gained by ex- 
perience alone. You may guess her age from the 
average of that; but bear in mind this: She sur- 
vived our trip, itself a mark of elasticity and 
strength; and what is more, survived it smiling, 

391 



392 THE LAURENTIANS 

a mark of deathless good spirits. Indeed Sally- 
gay was sprinkled at birth from the fount of 
effervescent youth. An hour with her would 
destroy a pessimist's pride in his own melancholy. 
An extra hour might convey to him some reasons 
for optimism, for she has studied the philoso- 
phers and tracked the liars of them to their lairs. 
But let him keep a continent mind, for Sally-gay 
is dispassionately strong, a gentlewomanly Min- 
erva, a wonderful pal. 

"Women who have not fine teeth laugh only 
with their eyes," proceeds de Musset. Alice- 
from-Wonderland laughs all over, being beautiful. 
The Wonderland that produced her could be only 
that modern one of wealth, travel, and the society 
that dresses itself in the fabric of cosmopolitan 
experience, knowing an ambassador here, an ex- 
plorer there. But from this background Alice's 
identity stands out by reason of her delight in 
things, her ardor for the woods, her utter fear- 
lessness. It is the rare woman who is sister to a 
dryad, the still rarer debutante. Alice met her 
knight and married years ago; he was luckier 
than Lancelot. 

Such two as these had made my impatience for 
the train quite reasonable. I gripped Moisan's 
hand for good-by, lifted my faithful duffle-bag up 
the steps, and bounded into the train. There 
they were ! 



ODYSSEY OF THE ST. MAURICE 393 

Canto 1: La Tuque 

They were there. I knew this because a mound 
of baggage obstructed all view of the passengers. 
A ridge of duffle-bags ended in a lofty promontory 
of bundles, from which a stream of lesser articles 
flowed to the floor. At the forward jerk of the 
train a new landslide began. Climbing around 
this I came upon them. 

''You see," said Sally-gay, ''we succeeded in 
coming light." 

"Yes," said I, tragically, "I see." 

"Really," added Alice, "we left a lot at the 
Ritz. Examines-vous for yourself." 

They had indeed done well, having confined 
themselves to a blanket apiece, the minimum of 
personalia, the only impersonal luxury being 
some sanitary Swiss bread of Sally-gay's, guar- 
anteed not to soak up the saliva. When they will 
have invented a bread that preserves one's life 
and temper at the same time, I shall consider it 
an advance. Both women were dressed in the 
only possible mountaineering costume. 

"They didn't stare much at the Ritz as we 
scuttled out," said Alice, "but at the Junction 
they beat spiders for eyes ! I like your habitant, 
though, he 's such a fearfully honest man. ' ' 

"Where 's Fred?" I asked. 

"Unable to get off for a week yet," said Sally- 



394i THE LAURENTIANS 

gay. **We left him talking to a lawyer with a 
beard that would have gone a long way toward 
renovating a hair mattress. Anybody with a 

beard like that " 

^' Doubtless goes to a vacuum-cleaner's in- 



stead of the barber," ventured Alice. 
"La Tuque!" added the conductor. 

The considerate traveler will arrive in La 
Tuque at night. He will do this so that on see- 
ing the distant lights of the Hotel Windsor shin- 
ing from the gloom, he can exclaim, ''What a 
cozy town ! " If he can manage to depart before 
dawn, the impression will not have been utterly 
destroyed. The train schedule, barring wrecks, 
not only permits of this, but exacts it, and it is 
this missing seeing La Tuque that has made it 
famous. 

La Tuque is one of those large areas of indus- 
trial Canada which has ceased to be nature 's and 
is not yet man's. I do not wonder that the La 
Tuquians are proud of their virgin city, for in 
it are growing 6500 people where none grew be- 
fore, and all this in the last few years. The in- 
habitants are housed, schooled, churched, and 
hoteled. They have the privilege of wandering 
around streets as broad as Petrograd's, and na- 
ture-lovers can observe larger dogs there than 
have ever been seen. These dogs furnish another 



ODYSSEY OF THE ST. MAURICE 395 

reason for arriving at night, for then they cannot 
observe you well. They are used in winter for 
hauling things through the bush. In summer, 
however, they operate in La Tuque, principally 
on the Eue Commerciale. It is fortunate that 
they do not yield to their atavistic instincts, or 
occasionally there would be a child the fewer. 
The reason for La Tuque is the Brown Corpora- 
tion, a huge and skilfully conducted pulp concern. 

The ladies had left Montreal with the tempera- 
ture at eighty-five. They woke to find it thirty- 
eight. The rain was sluicing down. October 
was coming in — ^by the gallon. We drank the 
cold, gray coffee of the morning after and trans- 
ported our effects to the station, where most of 
the population was collected discussing the wreck 
in avid French. 

''When does the next train leave for Mont- 
deschingue f " 

''Day after to-morrow, peut-etre, Monsieur." 

"Whatf' 

"There has been a wreck. It will take two 
days, or perhaps longer." 

Two days in La Tuque! Like a cycle of 
Cathay — ^in the cellar ! Alice had said laughingly 
the evening before that she had felt an incident 
coming, felt it in her bones. We turned anxiously 
to her to learn whether her bones ' prophetic mar- 



396 THE LAURENTIANS 

row was propitiated by this, or was there more 
to come? She thought this would sufiSce. Indeed 
it would seem so — two days in La Tuque! We 
walked meditatively hotelward through the mud. 

And now the mettle of my companions began to 
show. The temperament of neither was to be 
tamed by disaster, and the more their golden 
spirits were rubbed by misadventure the more 
they shone. The manager of the Hotel Windsor, 
seeing us return, must have suspected, either that 
our reason was sleeping or else that we had 
heard news so good as to be a little overpowering. 
Certainly from the way the girls laughed you 
might suppose that they were disappearing down 
the quicksands of sanity. Alice laughs all over, 
as I said, and at the apex of a spasm Sally-gay 
usually, I hesitate to mention, snorts. This pro- 
i^ides incentive for another round. 

''If Joe could only see me now!" said Alice. I 
was glad he could n 't A hotel lobby, a hillock of 
dufiflle in the middle of the floor, a French-Cana- 
dian attendant whose most helpful gesture was 
the national shrug; for view a street into which 
it was still raining ; and for vista two days of un- 
comfortable inaction, and more peut-etre. What 
husband wouldn't have taken his wife by the 
hand and said, "Let 's go home." 

But delicate woman is more stanchly built. We 
were beginning to recollect our Marcus Aurelius, 



ODYSSEY OF THE ST. MAURICE 397 

when a young fellow I had met once before passed 
the window. I leaped from the astonished ladies 
and dashed out the door and after him. 

Canto 2: Wayagamack 

''Eddie! Hello! Eddie Beauvais, Attendez un 
moment ! ' ' 

By this time whenever a member of the Beau- 
vais family sees me he knows that he is about to 
assist me out of some predicament. It has 
happened so often that the habit is established. 
Eddie, it appeared, had come in from the Waya- 
gamack Fish and Game Club, a child of Dr. 
Drummond's fishing exuberance, where Eddie's 
father and mother had been managers for many 
a day. Fred had told me about it, of course, but 
I had not realized that it was so near La Tuque. 

''You 'd better bring the ladies out to the 
club," said Eddie. 

"But the Hudson's Bay Factor at Sanmaur is 
expecting us." 

"I '11 'tend to that," said Eddie; "I '11 get a 
larger speeder and be ready to take you in forty 
minutes out to Wayagamack, if you like." 

We liked. 

In the North Country nowadays if you don't 
care to bring your moose-meat oTit of the bush by 
aeroplane you fetch it on the nearest railroad 
track by speeder, an instrument by Bessemer out 



398 THE LAURENTIANS 

of Ariel. If Emerson could call travel, as travel 
was in his day, a fool's paradise, I should like to 
have his verdict on speedering. A speeder is 
like the cow-catcher without the engine. You sit 
on a cushion in front of the very slight works, are 
trundled along the rails at an immense speed, 
which is noticeable in every joint, and are flung 
into the scenery ahead faster than you can take it 
in. Those who mount upon a speeder are known 
as sports; those who dismount, survivors. But, 
for exhilaration, speedering runs close to flying 
and shooting rapids, and our first rush out to the 
club was such a grateful contrast to sitting in 
that hotel lobby that we '11 all remember it, un- 
flaggingly, forever. 

The rain held up, momentarily, as we reached 
the club. Luckily I had recollected a member 
whom I had met, and so we did not have to frac- 
ture the rules of the place in being taken in. Mrs. 
Beauvais's lunch was of the utmost interest to 
us. Dr. Springle, the president, Dr. Hackett, and 
Mr. and Mrs. Plumb hospitably formed an invol- 
untary reception committee around the beautiful 
fireplace. And then thoughtful Eddie appeared 
with ''What would you like to do this afternoon?" 
We begged for more speedering, and were ad- 
vised to see Little Wayagamack. Reports that a 
moose had just been seen crossing the track de- 
cided us, and we were thus launched on an after- 



ODYSSEY OF THE ST. MAURICE 399 

noon of intense pleasure. Railroading as the Gov- 
ernment does it affords a rich diet of disappoint- 
ment ; as Eddie Beauvais does it, a delight to all 
the senses. 

The Wayagamack territory — 350 square miles 
of lake and mountain — was chosen by the poet 
Drummond and helped into clubdom by Commo- 
dore Parker of the Laurentian Club some thirty- 
five years ago. Thanks to a careful guardianship, 
fires have not ruined the mountains, nor unsightly 
buildings the lakes*; and on that afternoon of 
autumn the restfulness and beauty of everything 
sank deep. As our road climbed it curved, and 
where we had seen hillsides of glowing maple we 
now saw the level of blue waters. The clouds 
had been raked into windrows of ultramarine by 
a north wind, and through the in-between fell 
startling shafts of sun. Where these played upon 
the wet woods, yellows and crimsons smote the 
eye in blocks of freshly vivid color. Once when 
we tore down a grade, with a marvelous picture of 
reds and orange spread before us, and then were 
switched around the corner, Alice exclaimed, 
' ' Mercy ! I thought we were going to bump into 
the canvas !'' 

We saw no moose, but examined the tracks in 
the sand. We found the partridges so tame that 
they would not explode when you reached them, 
but merely take a step to the right or left as oc- 



400 THE LAURENTIANS 

casion demanded, and then cluck in one's face. 
I began to believe Matamek's tale of catching 
them with a wire-noose on a stick. But it was 
more difficult to believe Eddie 's about his brother 
Arthur's prowess in tracking moose. ''It 's just 
practice," said Eddie calmly; "he doesn't look 
just down on the ground. He looks ahead, sees 
where a bush has been bent, a piece of moss torn, 
on a fern crushed. That 's his business, like mak- 
ing up stories is yours. It 's only practice. ' ' 

When we got back to the moose track across 
the rails I tried to visualize myself following that 
unseen line through the apparently undisturbed 
thicket. A chippie sparrow could hardly have 
left less trace. I decided to stick to my plots and 
leave Arthur his. But I '11 acknowledge that 
the Sherlock Holmes of the woods lives the 
best of all detective stories. 

Possibly the most dramatically beautiful little 
incident I have ever seen occurred while we were 
still racing toward Wayagamack. One of those 
intensely vivid splashes of sunlight fell from the 
purple sky and warmed our path with its sudden 
glory. We rode with it in a sort of celestial spot- 
light, with the dripping colors of the darker land- 
scape outside. Suddenly a cluster of bluebirds 
sprang from nowhere and slipped through the 
brightness before us, curvetting, shining Hke 
shards of living porcelain, swift as joy. For one 



ODYSSEY OF THE ST. MAURICE 401 

long gleaming moment they wove strands of color 
before our eyes, and it seemed as if we too were 
flying. We held our breath while the ecstasy 
lasted. Its ending was the best. Ahead of us 
lay a group of quivering aspens, burned to an 
even yellow by the frost, and now turned to bright 
canary by the sun. With one last sword-like 
flash of blue the birds dove into this cave of flame 
and were swallowed up, as the sound of hunting 
horns is swallowed by a wood. 

By the law of luck we were bound to run into 
the third piece of good fortune, following Eddie 
and the bluebirds. It happened to be John Allen, 
veteran guide, who had put the poet Drummond 
wise to the riches of Wayagamack. We had a 
literary half -hour right on the spot. 

^'Yas, I knew him thirty years, a real man 
that." 

''What kind of a real man?" asked Sally-gay, 
to whom most men are real. 

"He liked dogs, ma'am. Terriers, Irish ter- 
riers. Whenever he 'd want something out of a 
man he 'd promise him a pup. But that pup 'd 
have to be just right or he couldn't let him go. 
Yas, the doctor liked things just right." 

"Which did he like better, doctoring or fish- 
ing?" asked Alice the teaser. 

John Allen was stumped and laughed. ' ' That 's 
the first time ever I was put that question, just in 



402 THE LAURENTIANS 

that way," he said seriously. ''I don't think it 
mattered, ma'am. Both was of prime importance 
when he was doing of it. To the doctor fishing 
was serious, and so I reckon was the dosing. But 
when he talked, it was about the fishing." 

''Did he ever talk about his poetry?" 

''Not he," said John Allen, quick to defend his 
friend. "Sometimes he 'd go upstairs in the old 
club-house, and stay a while and come out with a 
poem. I remember the night before he left for 
good him coming down and saying, 'Do you like 
this, John?' and it was that one beginning 'Again 
'er dark Wayagamack in bark canoe we '11 glide. ' 
But it was n't usual for him to mention it." 

One liked John Allen as one likes the rough, 
gray trunk of a sugar-maple; a strong, genuine, 
memory-sweetened man; and so we continued to 
draw him out. ' ' Tell us more about him, ' ' urged 
Sally-gay, "please." 

"Well, I don't know as telling does much good. 
You had to see him, a big man, a big, bluff man, 
who could double up a crowd with his stories and 
then make them see through tears by the turn of 
an anecdote. All he wanted was to see others 
enjoying themselves. He could put pain out of 
countenance by just walking into the room, and 
lots of times he would n't take the money for just 
the doing of that. Everybody lost a friend, I 
reckon, when he went. It was as he said of 'Ole 



ODYSSEY OF THE ST. MAURICE 403 

Docteur Fiset', *Doin' good was de only t'ing on 
hees min'.' " 

*' Which of his poems do you like best?" — it 
being my turn for a foolish question. 

'* 'Le Vieux Temps','' replied the old man, 
and then, ^'but as soon as I say that I think of 
two others like 'De Habitant and 'Pelang'. " 

**I wish you 'd say one of them," said Alice 
demurely, knowing well she 'd never been refused 
anything in her life, and never would be. 

''I 'm not too good at that, ma'am. Something 
has to start me, hke, as the doctor used to say. 
I only remember spots of them. 'De Habitant' 
begins : 

"De place where I get born, me, is up on de reaver 
Near foot of de rapide dat 's call Cheval Blanc. 
Beeg mountain behin ' it, so high you can 't climb it, 
An' whole place she's mebbe two bonder arpent. 

De fader of me, he was habitant farmer, 
Ma gran' fader too, an' hees fader also, 

Dey don 't mak ' no monee, but dat is n 't f onny, 
For it 's not easy get ev'ryt'ing, you mns' know — " 

**Aiid sometimes he could prick like a hedgehog 
quill," continued John Allen. "He was Irish 
and never forgot it. He got off one fine one here : 

"Dat 's place t'ree Irishman get drown, 
Wan day we have beeg storm. 
I s'pose de Queen is feel lak cry, 
Lose dat nice uniform!" 



404. THE LAURENTIANS 

''Do you know ' Toleon Dore', ma'am'? That 
a tale of this river, the St. Maurice. True, too.'* 

''I suppose all his poems came from things 
that happened." 

"Oh, yes, ma'am, the doctor was honest- 
minded," said honest John Allen. 

Eventually we released the guide, but not be- 
fore we 'd got pieces of ''Leetle Bateese" and 
"Ole Tarn on Bord a Plouffe" out of him, and 
filled ourselves with the resolve to hunt down this 
wholesome-minded poet in earnest. Louis Frech- 
ette had called him "pathfinder in the land of 
song," and from what we had heard it seemed 
that he had tied into a felicitous braid those vari- 
ous strands of poesy, humor, pathos, nature, and 
moral justice. He had explained a quaint and 
not understood people in terms of the simplic- 
ities that underlie all races. He had done this 
with enough slips from his general artistry to 
make it clear that he was sincerely a human being 
first, and then a poet. Plainly Dr. William Henry 
Drummond, who "had left for good" in 1907, as 
his liegeman put it, had left much affection behind 
him. This gnarled woodsman was speaking of 
him as if it had been but yesterday. Truly, that 
is the rustling of the laurel. 

We rode our speeder from purple heights down 
to the lower levels of blue and bronze and gold 
without much conversation. 



ODYSSEY OF THE ST. MAURICE 405 

Canto 3: Sanmaur 

The Terrible Trio, as Sally-gay thought we 
ought to be called, managed to remain several 
days at Wayagamack without precipitating any 
incidents upon the club. 

*'It 's fine," said Alice, "but fattening. II 
faut que je rhythm frantically chaque soir et 
matin so that I can wiggle into the costume you 
decreed. ' ' 

' ' That cake of Mrs. Beauvais 's will bring your 
morning exercises to naught," said Sally-gay. 
"Life is hard." 

"Yes," said Alice, still eating, "Life is hard." 

And I think they really would have liked better 
to go out into the bush and eat beans. But there 
was enough of that coming. The rain rained in 
a way that would have been of incalculable value 
during the drought, but which seemed excessive 
now; and the railway ofiScers had not yet caused 
the wreck to be picked up and taken away. So 
we read Drummond and sent wires to Messrs. 
Eoy and Pickering at Sanmaur, the last telegram 
announcing that we would arrive on the next 
train. 

I cannot think of anything unkinder than ar- 
ranging to arrive at Sanmaur. The only west- 
going train gets there at 2 a. m., and the only 
east-going leaves at 3.30 a. m., the St. Maurice 
is too full of rapids to permit of arrival by canoe 



406 THE LAURENTIANS 

or plane, and if you did come by dogs, they would 
fight with the post dogs and waj^en the two house- 
holds anyhow. So there's no way to slip into the 
place at all, at all. 

Sanmaur is the old Montdechingue, the place 
where the St. Maurice turns north (for those 
ascending) and leads one into a wilderness not 
even spoiled by a single-track railroad, the spot 
where a Hudson's Bay post has been since the 
earliest days, the scene of a great fight between 
the old company and their upstart rival, the 
Northwest Co., a strategic stepping-off place into 
the circumjacent wilds, and, for us, a haven. 

The Beauvais family had again come to the 
rescue, and through their acquaintance with Mr. 
and Mrs. Roy, lonely householders of the plain, 
had seen to it that we would be welcomed. And 
that was a relief. It isn't my normal idea of 
comfort to leap from a train at 2 a. m. into a be- 
drizzled desert of scrub spruce with two ladies in 
tow, equipped with nothing but a fund of gaiety 
and some odd baggage. It is better to be met by 
a Falstaff named Eoy, with a lantern, and the 
light from his adjacent cottage shining through 
the murk — to be welcomed like a prodigal family. 
I can imagine Roy saying: ''Hostess, clap to the 
doors; watch to-night, pray to-morrow. Gal- 
lants, lad, girls, hearts of gold, all the titles of 



ODYSSEY OF THE ST. MAURICE 407 

goodfellowship come to you! What, shall we be 
merry?" 

The effect was very like that, anyway. This 
big and jovial warden of the wilderness intro- 
duced us to home and wife, threw some more birch 
into the stove, called for refreshment, and at 
three of the morn we were sitting back in our 
chairs howling at his irrepressible tales. With 
malice toward none and a mighty sense of humor, 
he told us of his countryside. Not that he was 
garrulous. We cruelly, kept him up; and his 
pretty, dark-eyed wife helped with the enlivening. 
Finally Sally-gay, who kept at whatever people 
she suspected of harboring a voice, got Mrs. Roy 
to sing some of the voyageurs' songs. Right by 
that very river-bank the voyageurs had passed in 
their striped cotton shirts and blanket surcoats. 
Those same spruces that made the dark still 
darker had seen their fires, a V ombre d' un 
hois — this very wood. These realities make 
the romance of Canadian travel. 

The romance continued the next morning, — if 
two hours can be called a night — for the factor 
of the Hudson's Bay post, Mr. Pickering, came in 
his canoe from the picturesque white group of 
buildings across the river to offer his services. 
I had been brought up, in novels, on his ilk: the 
handsome younger son, scorning to hang around 



408 THE LAURENTIANS 

the fraternal castle, coroing out to Canada, driv- 
ing dog-trains through blizzards that out-howled 
the dogs, winning fame and incidental fortune, 
and returning to the ducal premises in order to 
wed the exacting heiress of his youthful admira- 
tion. Mr. Pickering, of Scotland, fulfilled these 
conditions to a nicety. From castle to dog-train, 
from dog-train to reputation, these stages already 
at an early age had been passed. Little remained 
to be achieved but the heiress, and when the 
gentleman in question decides to tear himself 
away from his emerald seclusion the heiress and 
the subsequent installation will be merely a matter 
of railway and steamship schedules. 

With a gallant sort of kindness that went par- 
ticularly to the heart in those surroundings, Mr. 
Pickering put the facilities of his post at our dis- 
posal. Mr. Roy had already arranged for us to 
visit La Loutre, so we accepted for Pickering's 
dinner-party on the way back from the Arctic 
Circle. A curious boat was tugging at the leash, 
a cool wind swept the oozing clouds aside, we took 
our seats on the airy prow, and then began the 
trip of trips. 

The St. Maurice River is indeterminably long, 
no one knowing exactly which is its lengthiest 
feeder. It rises in a wilderness of lakes on the 
Height of Land, flows southward to Sanmaur, 
east to La Tuque, and south again to the St. 



ODYSSEY OF THE ST. MAURICE 409 

Lawrence at Three Rivers. Barring the white 
water which leaps in one continuous rapid from 
Sanmaur to La Tuque (about seventy miles), and 
now paralleled by the train, this river from source 
to mouth affords one of the easiest and most 
beautiful canoe trips in eastern America. It 
could be extended into a voyage 350 miles long 
by a certain additional lake trip, mentioned later. 
In many places it is astoundingly wild. As far 
as I can find by desultory inquiry, it is mentioned 
in no American geographies, and to most trav- 
elers its beauties are unknown. Yet there it 
flows, a more savage if less stately Hudson. By 
way of final surprise I found that the greatest 
dam in the world (that is, the dam storing the 
greatest quantity of fresh water anywhere on the 
planet) is situated seventy miles north of the 
railroad at Sanmaur. Everybody has heard of 
Assouan; but who has even seen the words La 
Loutre ? 

The boat on which we reviewed the passing 
wilderness belonged to the Brown Corporation. 
This company maintains a post at the dam to 
regulate the river's flow, and probably owns the 
timber-limits through which we stole, hour after 
hour, against current and wind. There were to 
be no more houses for the day's journey. Once 
we saw a white tent where an Indian, en route 
for the interior, was spending the night. He was 



410 THE LAURENTIANS 

the last soul seen on that stream. Whatever else 
was nature's; and indeed in these great areas 
man, emerging a little from nature's earth, seems 
so intolerably alone and lost, that for him to sink 
back into the universal matrix appears his easiest 
fate. While alive, however, he is couched in the 
wildest beauty. 

The hills rose not very high but with superb 
lines. Along the banks half-extinguished flam- 
beaux of maples lit the way up the autumnal 
fields ; great mountain-flanks of aspen shone with 
golden slopes, veined with the platinum of birch, 
and streaked with the water-darkened trunks of 
rain-denuded maples. The ceaseless river, the 
wide skies, the clouds hurrying in perpetual flight, 
the miles of rival vacancy on either hand, all sug- 
gested the unutterable wildness of the North. 
And the bigness of it made marvelous the ambi- 
tion of man, who, by little and little, arrives at 
unguessed prodigious ends. 

"I suppose I '11 survive it," said Alice, ''but 
it 's tearing me to pieces, the beauty of it." 

And Sally-gay, I could see, was opening new 
storerooms in her brain in which to cache those 
pictures. Nothing, most philosophers agree, is 
lost; all things handed over by our several senses 
to custodian memory are laid away beyond cor- 
ruption. Yet when and where will they be dis- 
played? How will they be ranged for viewing — 



ODYSSEY or THE ST. MAURICE 411 

those vistas of purple glens and green slides of 
spruce and the dancing clusters of faun-loving 
birches? And who shall see? 

With the precision of a solar system, our boat 
was met by a speeder at the foot of La Loutre rap- 
ids and jaunted us another thirty miles to the dam, 
every jolt of the way being through the most en- 
trancing forest that ever harbored sorcerers or 
gave birth to fairy-tales. The old rails had carted 
in the concrete to make the 1870-foot wall which 
kept the waters in, and were to be forgiven. Par- 
tridges sat in the track. A low anemic sun slipped 
down between the trees, and these now had lost 
all pretense of existing for man. The oaks, the 
maples, the apple-trees, the walnuts, pears, and 
vines of Pennsylvania which had been part of my 
domesticated youth were unthought of here. 
This forest existed for moose and bear. It con- 
sisted of tall black spruces, ant-concealing birches, 
harboring thickets of succulent alder — that was 
all. All, except the now occasional muskeg rank 
with tufted grass, and a world of moss. I have 
never seen such beautiful park-land, level, mossy, 
set with straight-trunked trees. 

We probably put Mr. John Carter of the dam 
to considerable trouble, for he and Captain Eow- 
ell had arranged for the ladies' comfort. These 
gentlemen saw to it that we were escorted about 
the place and fed with information, as well as 



412 THE LAURENTIANS 

the exceedingly good things to eat which are the 
sign of a successful lumber company's manage- 
ment. At La Loutre one had lumber-jacking de 
luxe, a porcelain tub, really hot water, books, a 
Victrola, and electric lights. La Loutre is prob- 
ably the station farthest north for electric lights, 
in our part of America, and it is the only 
place I ever slept in where heat is automatically 
turned on so that a man can rise a few minutes 
later, and dress in a comfortable room. 

Canto 4: The Gouin Dam 

Civilization is like old age ; it wrinkles the face 
of nature. First it roots up beauty, and last it 
changes its name as if the obliteration were not 
perfect. La Loutre, named The Otter for the 
wondrous way in which the rapids there slip 
into a great pool, must have been a singularly 
glorious spot before commerce came. Two hills 
approach, the waters gather up their skirts and 
run. The mothering woods look on; knowing 
that all will be right in the end, that the waters 
will escape. 

But they are caught now. A vast wall of con- 
crete turns them back — back for one hundred and 
twenty-five miles. A hundred and sixty billion 
cubic feet of water are disappointed. That is four 
times the amount stored by the hitherto greatest 



ODYSSEY OF THE ST. MAURICE 4.13 

dam, the Assouan. Yet the thing cost only two 
million dollars, surveying and all. All political 
grafters should be imprisoned with their cells 
facing La Loutre for their object-lesson. 

I spent the evening listening to Captain Eowell, 
engineer, tell of the great hinterland still farther 
north. More than three hundred square miles had 
been flooded. Indian villages had had to be re- 
located. The Hudson's Bay post at Obijuan had 
had to move higher, I was told. The result was 
a labyrinth of half-submerged forest, a maze in 
which one could paddle, lost for days. My mind 
watered at the thought of trips possible, desir- 
able objectives in a sort of North Amazonian 
jungle. The obliging captain got down his maps 
and pointed out the following trip. 

"Start," he said, "at Oscalanea on the Trans- 
continental eighty miles west to Sanmaur with 
an Indian there named Charlie Mackenzie for 
guide, and go via Escalona River, Grand Lac du 
Sud, Lac du Nord, Obijuan Post, Lac Onigamis, 
Lac aux Sables, Lac Travers Coutidewastin, 
Kikendatch, and so to the dam; distance about 
one hundred and twelve miles. A guide who 
knew the place before it was flooded is necessary. " 

I might add that one could start from Ottawa, 
and paddling on the Gatineau, Escalona, St. 
Maurice, Bostonnais, Lake St. John, and Sague- 



414 THE LAURENTIANS 

nay, could accomplish as mucli in distance and 
variety as one summer can afford on any planet. 
This tour is not offered by Cooks. 

We were on the Height of Land, about 1325 
feet above the sea. They told us that the winds 
blew unceasingly. If the water had been raised 
a very few feet higher the flow would have turned 
the other way into Hudson's Bay. That rendez- 
vous of romance seemed very close to us. The 
ducks that flew over us at sundown had not come 
from far; the winds that whispered through the 
reeds had not been wearied by much travel. 
Winter here must be stark indeed. 

**I1 est defendu de parler a la table," was the 
sign on the mess-room wall. The ladies had 
wanted to see the lumber-jack in operation, and 
have a regular ** shanty" meal. For breakfast: 
potatoes, eggs, moose-meat, prunes, bread, syrup, 
milk, and coffee. Boarding-house people who be- 
lieve that they have known the prune should apply 
to the steward of La Loutre for enlightenment. 
If you add appetite to good cooking you can im- 
agine how those men ate. 

* ' Why the sign I ' ' asked Alice. ' ' They 're not 
women. ' ' 

''But they 're Canucks," said Mr. Carter, 
"good men, but garrulous." 

It was the most expeditious exhibition of high- 



ODYSSEY OF THE ST. MAURICE 415 

speed feeding I have ever seen. A small boy 
bolting dessert to reach the ball-field, or a zoologi- 
cal lion, engulfing a slab of horse, might approach 
in celerity the way those men despatched the 
provender, but not equal it. One human ostrich 
took less than five minutes for his four courses. 
Most of them were done in eight. 

''My!" said Sally-gay with a sigh, ''can we 
talk now! I couldn't taste anything." 

"Evidently Mr. Fletcher was on the wrong 
track," added Alice ; "you never saw such healthy 
animals in your fife. Hog and be husky shall 
be my motto henceforth. Thirty chews, not to a 
mouthful, but to a meal." 

The rain, which had been stopped for a few 
hours by an oversight of nature, now, by 
another sight, began again, and we with it. 
The forest had looked wild enough coming up on 
the speeder in the late afternoon. But going 
down, its swamps, its dripping moss, its dark 
vistas of wet jack-pine trunks and somber black 
spruce looked stern, weighted with primeval age. 
The young fellow Chauvineuve, who drove the 
three of us to the boat, said that when he had first 
come up to the place he had been "lonely to 
tears." Alice said she wondered if that was 
what was the matter with the weather. Celts 
weep more easily than Saxons, but that perfectly 
expressed the feeling of eternal isolation in that 



416 THE LAURENTIANS 

flat, gray forest. We saw no m-oose, although 
their tracks were numerous, more of them than 
usual having been driven eastward by fires from 
Abitibi. Chauvineuve said that there were few 
deer about, some caribou, a few wolves, many 
bear, and of course quantities of the small fur- 
bearers. A glance at the Hudson's Bay Co. map 
in Mr. Youngman's office in Montreal (where, 
thanks to Mr. Hodkinson 's indefatigable courtesy, 
planning was made easy for me) showed a great 
number of posts operating in the radius of a few 
hundred miles, testimony of course to the abun- 
dance of fur. 

Mr, Pickering's dinner-party was delightful- 
ness itself. It was as a drop of civilization, dis- 
tilled from the Old World and set ashining in the 
midst of a wilderness, dark with night and storm. 
The only fellow-beings about were Mr. and 
Mrs. Eoy and the station-agent on the far side of a 
roaring river, and on this side the Factor and his 
young man cook just out from England. Unless 
you include three Indians, two young men wait- 
ing for their father to die before they left on their 
belated hunt. The old man was waiting too, and 
had brought his coffin into the bedroom so that 
it might be handy. Picture two very charming 
women dropped upon Mr. Pickering from the 
skies, and bringing with them fresh reminder of 
his far world of castles and heiresses; and again 



ODYSSEY OF THE ST. MAURICE 417 

picture us hearing at first hand, if very modestly, 
of that even farther world where the Indians had 
only just ceased from troubling and the wolves 
hadn't yet reached that point. Then judge how 
interesting the party was. 

''It 's only the old, mangy wolves that are bad,'' 
said Pickering. ''They '11 crowd into a post 
and bite the dogs and give them hydrophobia. If 
that happens on a march the whole train goes 
mad. But as a general rule wolves travel in 
small packs, usually of four, and won't attack a 
man. Still, of course we don't trust them." 

"But weren't you fearfully lonely?" inquired 
Sally-gay. "The Northwest Territories sound 
wide and empty to me." 

"So they are. But the Eskimos would drop in 
occasionally, and there 's one's job to be attended 
to. And of course now there 's not any danger 
for a man with tact. It used to be different, par- 
ticularly a hundred years ago when our rivals, 
the Northwest Co., brought on an actual war, with 
battles, burning, pillage, and general hell, if 
you '11 pardon the term. It was at this very spot 
that rival parties kept watch for canoes with furs 
and jumped each other. Lord Strathcona was at 
this post once." 

"It strikes me that it 's sufficiently difficult to 
master the wilderness without having it compli- 
cated by hold-up brigades," I said. "It has re- 



418 THE LAURENTIANS 

quired the resources of the biggest fur company 
in the world and one of the biggest pulp com- 
panies to keep us dry." 

"Not dry, but un-drowned," corrected Alice. 
"You 'd have to paint us in water-colors to make 
us true to hfe." 

"It 's astonishing how well we keep," said 
Pickering, "despite all the weathers." 

"Canadians ought to be well-preserved," 
added Sally-gay, "being kept in cold-storage half 
the year." 

I wish that the human organ of appreciation 
were more elastic. All my life I had heard of the 
"Adventurers of England Trading into Hudson's 
Bay," had realized that this band of adventurers 
had been granted the rights "to make peace and 
war with any prince or people not Christian" and 
had "the sole right to trade with native tribes 
on the shores of Hudson's Bay." I knew that 
Canada's grasp and control was due, in the 
wilder parts, largely to the Company's "well- 
trained agents who administer justice and pre- 
serve order among the native tribes." I knew 
this ; I was the guest of one of the men who had, 
despite his youth, administered justice and or- 
dered around the native tribes. In another room 
were the secret accounts of tradings; within the 
storehouse would soon be piled the furs. Be- 



ODYSSEY OF THE ST. MAURICE 4<19 

tween talk we could hear the St. Maurice bearing 
waters from a wilderness whose only association 
had been with the men of this company; their 
forerunners, the coureurs des hois; and theirs, the 
Indians. At the head of the table dispensing 
hospitality, Pickering, carrying on the ancient 
tradition of the company, the still more ancient 
tradition of younger son. "Why couldn't my ro- 
mantic lungs know that they were inhaling the 
rare air of old dreams? Why didn't they tingle 
with it ? I aim to be no stolid Indian and receive 
wonders with no more enthusiasm than a scram- 
bled egg. Why is it so hard to feel history? In 
old attics you can smell it; but that is as far as 
it goes. Sometime we may develop an historic 
sense. 

Willy-nilly poor Pickering was a fashionable 
host, for his guests could n 't well leave till early 
in the morning, having nowhere to go. And 
when we left it was his responsibility to see that 
we didn't drown; not in the rain, this time (al- 
though it was exceeding the rate technically 
known as pouring), but in the river. 

"The point is," said Pickering, *'to aim far 
enough up so that one does not get sucked into 
the rapids. You hear them?" 

I heard them, a distant guttural bass to the 
staccato treble of the rain. There was nothing 



420 THE LAUHEXTIAXS 

to see. A heavy murk, that Troiild have pnt 
Moses's best darkness in the shade, hnng in the 
air. Alice said that she onght to be taken first 
so that, if drowned, there wonld be somebody left 
to tell Joe. Sally-gay said that it was immater- 
ial to her whether she drowned in the river or 
on the bank. As for myself — the disadvantage 
of telling yonr tale in the first person lies in the 
fact that one can never work np any anxiety 
about one's self; but even without anxiety it was 
lots of fun. TTe made the double trip without 
upsetting once. Mr. Roy had prepared a fare- 
well libation of that which keeps one's mind on 
cheerful subieets. To Sanmaur the clock dial has 
no significance, apparently. At 3 :57 the train 
screeched, and we left our hosts dissolving into 
darkness, like Bryant's water-fowl. 

''Trust the Terrible Trio to inconvenience 
people," said Sally-gay. "It 's lucky these good 
souls have a six months' night coming to them 
soon." 

"What about us?" I suggested. "TVe have to 
get off in three hours." 

"That 's all right," said Alice, yawning bitter- 
ly. "Xothing in moderation — that 's our mot- 
to I" And, to judge from later events, it seemed 
to be. 



ODYSSEY OF THE ST. MAURICE 4*21 

Canto 5: La Tuque to Lac Sans Nom 

Fred surprised us by appearing at La Tuque. 
The weather surprised us by clearing off. And 
we surprised ourselves by feeling exceedingly 
chipper; so much so that when Fred told us that 
boats and guides were ready we felt quite in the 
mood to leave La Tuque. About one-third of the 
credit for this is due to La Tuque. 

Marriage may be a lottery, but in marriage at 
least some of the constant factors are constant 
some of the time. For the perfection of gamb- 
ling, try travel. 

We were now embarked in two canoes on the 
St. Maurice, which flows from La Tuque to Grand 
Piles, al\out seventy miles, without rapids violent 
enough to prevent steamer-traffic. For a cur- 
sory glance at the river-banks it is sufficient to 
take the steamer. I tried waiting once (the 
steamer is a temperamental thing), and after 
waiting three days in La Tuque was told that it 
had slipped up by night and away again. Not 
feeling capable of another three days in La Tuque 
I made one cursory glance do me, and went down 
the St. Maurice by train. 

But the river trip ought to be made by the river, 
and in a canoe, to be satisfying. And whether 
one sleeps at the occasional habitant farms or 
takes tents, the thing should be done loiteringly, 



422 THE LAURENTIANS 

and in the autumn. The last two weeks of 
September and the first week in October should 
find the trees in their most distinguished stage. 
Before leaving La Tuque you must know that 
the name of the place comes from a rocky cap, 
scraggly with spruce, rising high on the eastern 
bank, near which Mr. Brown of the corporation 
has a beautifully situated home, near where (I 
believe) the old Hudson's Bay post was located. 
The best view of La Tuque is had by the leave- 
taker; and from mid-river. Thence the garish 
part of the place is hid; you see wooded palis- 
ades and a line of white painted houses on the 
shore. The wide composure of the easy stream 
soothes away the past. 

It was almost restful, paddling with the current. 
I knelt in the bow of Fred's canoe and passed the 
water back to him. We seemed to go at astonish- 
ing speed for the little effort. We flashed by logs 
that had escaped from Brown's, passed the long 
island which had seemed so far away, passed the 
outlet to Lake Wayagamack, and settled down to 
hour after hour of it, never changing speed or 
sides — an Indian recipe for growing oblivious of 
fatigue. 

The rain soon started, and although it failed 
to reach its normal intensity, we decided on dinner 
ches un habitant whom Fred had often stayed 
with on winter log-hauling trips up and down the 



ODYSSEY OF THE ST. MAURICE 4<23 

river. From their sunset-facing cove we had a 
view of curving shores, gleaming forest, and a 
glimpse of the river leaping into a full-throated 
gorge below. We also had habitant fare at its 
best. Alice spent the time trying to get a con- 
servative and rather callous-faced cat to be 
friends; while Sally-gay spent hers stripping the 
floors of hand-woven rugs. Intermittently be- 
tween these occupations both girls tried to induce 
the male chorus, with which every habitant home 
is equipped, to sing to us. One hated to leave; 
but L' Anse Sans Nom, where we shouM sleep, 
was twenty miles beyond the twenty we had come. 
So we added the rugs to our sporting-goods equip- 
ment and went on. 

The beauty of that afternoon was masked only 
a little by the rain. Palisades loomed duskily 
through blurry distances; and we saw the dim, 
inviting entrance of the Riviere Aux Rats, and 
the foliage of not yet forgotten autumn. All that 
we felt, all that was said cannot be Boswellized 
upon a page. One remark though: Sally-gay, 
well-read in the philosophers, on rising from her 
cramped quarters in the canoe, said that she now 
understood the Mohammedan future better, as 
she was experiencing Nirvana from the knees 
down. 

Fred, who hoped some day to lease territory 
from the Government for a string of camps for 



424 THE LAURENTIANS 

sportsmen, had suggested that we break our 
journey at this midway point and take an excur- 
sion inland to some lakes he knew. We wanted 
to see his choice, wanted to see some moose, and 
to observe Fred in action, the ladies having heard 
a good deal about his camp-craft. So next morn- 
ing we accumulated additional impedimenta and 
set forth as follows : 

Louis, a resident of the place, with a horse and 
sledge with our duffle. 

Fred, carrying a canoe. 

Alice with a revolver for partridges. 

Moi, with fishing-rod and a partridge receiver. 

Sally-gay with camera and the Swiss bread. 

Ferdinand, an extra guide, carrying another 
canoe. 

Louis's horse was a stalwart animal about the 
size of an elephant, and correspondingly strong. 
This was fortunate because the road, besides 
mounting a story at a time, frequently led over 
stumps instead of around them. The sledge 
creaked and the duffle tossed like a packet in the 
Irish sea ; but the horse^pulled on and Louis, con- 
trary to French custom, treated him with consid- 
eration and kindness. 

Ferdinand, we knew at once, was going to be an 
interesting addition to our retinue. He was 
slight but strong, smiling, courteous, and skilful, 
a little lazy but indefinitely willing if told. He 



ODYSSEY OF THE ST. MAURICE 425 

was also full of song, which pleased Sally-gay, 
and fond of telling stories, which pleased Alice. 
He and Fred had often worked together on like 
parties, so their efforts blended to quick effects. 
It was an auspicious beginning for any party, and 
to add to our joyance a dappled sky shed a quiet 
autumnal sun into the ravine up which our train 
was winding its way. 

Half-way we halted so that the column could 
reform in partridge-hunting formation. Alice 
and revolver led, moi next, then Sally-gay with 
the camera, and the heavy battery of moose-rifle, 
canoes, and duffle strung along the rear. Peace 
lay on the hills, sunlight up the trail, and the 
wind was still. It seemed rather a shame to 
shoot anything; but sentiment must give way to 
soup. We wanted partridge stew. On all our 
previous walks the birds had loitered in the paths 
before us, looking us over. For this reason we 
had chosen the revolver, for, although neither 
Alice nor I had ever used a revolver much, it 
seemed scarcely the sportsmanlike thing to use a 
shotgun where one had to back away from the 
birds in order to shoot them easily. 

After proceeding, tense as tiger-hunters, for 
half a mile with our cavalcade behind us, we saw 
the familiar dartle in the bush, an apparition of 
a hen partridge crossing the trail. Then, that 
thrill every hunter has along the spine when the 



426 THE LAURENTIANS 

game ^s in sight! I held up my hand and the 
caravan halted. Alice held up the revolver. 
Ajid fired. The partridge held up its head, and 
looked at us. Sally-gay moved a step closer with 
the camera. 

Alice now fired again. In, my sport-bewildered 
way, I was guilty of an indecorum. I said, 
"Let ^s ea^h take two shots." 

Of course I was immediately ashamed of what 
I 'd said, but Alice pressed the revolver upon me. 
I took my two and handed the revolver back to 
Alice. Her third had some effect, or else the 
partridge had made sure that we were carrying 
firearms, for it stepped out of the open space, 
where it had been sitting, and began to walk away. 

"Aim ahead," I implored Alice. 

"Aim lower," suggested Fred, resting his 
canoe. 

Alice, nearly as cool as the bird itself, aimed 
ahead, and lower, and doubtless would have im- 
molated the wild thing, if it had not stepped 
aside. 

"It 's your turn," she said. 

"Take another," I begged, beginning to re- 
member my manners. 

"No, finish it," she said. 

Possibly I might have yielded to this flattery 
and taken some more shots, had not the bird 
concluded to withdraw, expertly and instantan- 
eously. This she did. And only then did we get 



ODYSSEY OF THE ST. MAURICE 427 

the full funniness of the situation : looking around 
in a dazed, nerve-bedraggled manner we suddenly 
visualized the peaceful trail, the calm, deliberate 
bird, our ignoble endeavors to exterminate it, 
Sally-gay having buck-fever with the camera, 
Fred poHtely resting his canoe, further along 
Ferdinand resting his, and at the tail of the caval- 
cade Louis with sledge and duffle and that peas- 
ant-faced horse, all waiting with infinite courtesy 
and patience until we should have finished off the 
partridge at our feet ! 

There may be innumerable uses for a revolver, 
as the advertisements insist; but the misuses of 
it are even more innumerable. One of these, as 
Alice and I will attest, is partridge-hunting, par- 
ticularly en retinue. 

It was dusk before we had dismissed Louis and 
the horse, transferred ourselves and duffle to a 
wooded slope of Lac Sans Nom in canoes, and 
picked a camp-ground. I rejoiced in no responsi- 
bility. In fifteen minutes the tent-sites were 
cleaned and smoothed, in thirty the tents were up, 
in forty-five supper was simmering on the fire, 
and in another hour disposed of. The ample 
evening spread before us. It was to furnish the 
ladies, who had not done this sort of thing, with 
an unforgettable picture. For the sole time on 
our trip the sky was cloudless, and we went out on 
the lake to call moose. 



428 THE LAURENTIANS 

I hope that Fred can lease this country for the 
usual ninety-nine years, because it is his long de- 
sire made visible in lakes and hills and trees. He 
will be careful of the dreams it hoards. Certainly 
that night was charged with them. We rested in 
our canoes with Fred somewhere beyond near 
shore. The silence of deserted lands ringed us, 
and high through the starry waste rose that V of 
the Pleiades, winging before Orion, the hunter, 
like a flight of golden geese. From the north 
came f ore-shimmerings of the aurora. The world 
was as still as a room; in fact the yellow candle 
which Fred had lit to show the landing burned 
with a steady flame, making a spiritual spot of 
beauty in the hollow dark. 

His call began gently, rose until one was sure 
it would be heard along the farthest valleys, and 
then subsided into some insinuating grunts, which 
may sound very delicious to the distant bull, but 
which reminded me of a dying Sunday-school 
organ. Then Fred's canoe drifted noiselessly up 
to ours, and we listened, listened till I thought the 
silence would crush us, and heard the shadowy, 
deep-voiced answer of the bull, disturbed in his 
hill-browsing by this broadcast love-call. He may 
have been confused as to the direction, or a rude 
Eomeo, for he did not show up, and when the 
quarter-moon sank down into the balsam, so did 
we. It was Alice 's first night on boughs. 



ODYSSEY OF THE ST. MAURICE 429 

Next morning we called over to hear how they 
slept. *^J'ai dormis putrid," said Alice, good- 
naturedly. ''Rotten in its intensest tense. Send 
in the maid. ' ' 

But when Ferdinand had a fire leaping in front 
of their tent, and Fred had started the coffee 
fragrance going, and they had brushed their hairs 
and discovered that they 'd each had half a night, 
one could see that they were in nature 's thrall. 

"I '11 get the best of that bed yet," said Alice, 
*'but why didn't you keep the animals away. I 
heard the lynxes running up and down the trees, 
with other things sitting on the tent. ' ' 

*'It 's hard to know where private life begins 
in camping," said Sally-gay, hanging up her 
toothbrush on a tree. 

"Those whisky-soaks draw no line," said Alice 
pointing to a group of whisky-jacks which were 
pecking insolently at our butter on the table just 
constructed. How those birds did love us! The 
English sparrow seems a timid and suspicious 
trifler compared with the audacious freebootery 
which these birds carried on. But in that primal 
land there are bonds, however slight, between 
living being and living being, and I admired their 
confidence and unafraidness. 

Were I making a book of this chapter I would 
tell what ripping camp-fellows Sally-gay and 
Alice were, and how it poured, and what prodigies 



430 THE LAURENTIANS 

of comfort Fred improvised — balsam roof above 
the fire, birch-bark utensils, something for every 
need. I would repeat the girls' witticisms and 
Fred's stories and Ferdinand's songs, and de- 
scribe the side-trips to see otter-slides, and the 
occasion on which we surprised a bear fishing 
through the alders for trout. I would make the 
office-bound reader sick with envy of the life we 
led on those beautiful lakes, and of the companion- 
ship with those women, so hearty, so stimulating, 
so appreciative. This hinterland was new to 
them in a hundred ways, yet none of its evasive 
beauty was lost. It was that appreciation which 
I the planner, Fred the performer, and Ferdinand 
the paid-hand, appreciated in turn. Lack of it 
makes the job of taking womankind to the woods 
a sickening thing. It must not be the apprecia- 
tion of the hps only, which is even worse, but an 
innate, unspoken thing as unpremeditated and 
natural as first love. Having it women are 
woods-fit, and the final delight of those who love 
the Silent Places. 

We persuaded Ferdinand to help us down the 
rest of the St. Maurice. Ferdinand in flannel 
shirt or Ferdinand in stiff collar as first aid to 
the priest at the Church of L'Anse Sans Nom was 
still Ferdinand, naive, and laughter-liking. Up 
and down the frozen stream in winter he carried 
the mail which was entrusted to the temperamen- 



ODYSSEY OF THE ST. MAURICE 431 

tal steamer in summer, and as we paddled down 
every point recalled an anecdote or a song. Of 
the latter I must give a song about a partridge 
hunter which we all liked most. I '11 never see 
the words without seeing young Ferdinand's 
brown eyes laughing and hearing his really good 
voice telling this silly tale in the beguiling minor 
of its time. 

CHANSON DU CHASSEUR 

C ' est un petit bonhomme 
Qui s' appelait Gregory 

Carabis. 
II s' en va-t-a la chasse, 
A la ehasse aux perdrix 

Carabis. 
Tiens, bien, Carabin, 

Tu, ru, te, tu, 
Te laisseras tu mourir? 
II s' en va-t-a la chasse, 
A la chasse aux perdrix 

Carabis. 
II monte dans une arbre 
Pour voir le chien courir 
Carabis. 
Tiens, bien, Carabin 

Tu, ru, te, tu, 

Te laisseras tu mourir? 

II monte. . . . (etc., the new couplets being:) 

La branche vient ta rompre 
Et Gregory tombait. 



432 THE LAURENTIANS 

II se brise la, jambe 

Et s' en bras c' est demis, 

Les dames de 1' bopital 
Sont aecouries a lui. 
L' une avec un emplat 
Et r autre du sharpi, 

Carabis. 
II a dit que je prefer 
Un petit verre du whisky, 

Carabis. 
Tiens, bien, Carabin, 

Tu, ru, te, tu, 

Te laisseras tu mourir? 

Canto 6: To Grand Piles and Lac la PecJie 

The St. Maurice might not appeal to the ad- 
vanced school of tourists known as the Euclideans 
who are only interested in the swiftest line be- 
tween two points, the two points being the start 
and finish. For the St. Maurice is eminently a 
loafer's paradise. It pursues a sufficiently direct 
route, personally, to please any Euclidean; but 
a glance at the large map (that one can coax from 
Quebec), reveals its paradisal qualities: a hun- 
dred little rivers up which one may pole, and two 
hundred little lakes for each little river ; with here 
and there a mountain range. Cowper sighing 
for his lodge in some vast wilderness should have 
known of the St. Maurice; Omar trudging along 
laden with a book of verses, a loaf of bread, and 



ODYSSEY OF THE ST. MAURICE 433 

a jug of wine, could here have found his bough 
beneath which to enjoy them. While we, only 
just inoculated with savagery, and but one day 
above the comparative civilization of the Lauren- 
tian Club, we said farewell to L' Anse Sans Nom 
with heartfelt if conservatively worded regret. 

*'Do you realize," said Alice, 'Hhat this is one 
of the places that we do not come back to ? " As 
anybody knows, certain unpremeditated raptures 
cannot be found again, no matter how much one 
may haunt the geographical spot of their first 
occurrence. 

The rest of the river was to be negotiated in a 
long canoe, Ferdinand bow paddle, the Terrible 
Trio and their still more terrible duflSe in the mid- 
dle, and Fred in the stern. It was to be a trip 
de luxe. And to make it so we borrowed some 
cushions to sit on. They were green. 

Eainstorms seem to reach their highest develop- 
ment along the St. Maurice, both in effectiveness 
and intelHgence. Instead of beginning to rain at 
breakfast-time and thus spoiling the day for 
travelers, they hold up until the traveling has 
begun and then spoil it. Alice said that she had 
not really needed any of the baths she had taken 
en route, the rain had been so extremely thorough ; 
it was only that she preferred to wash herself. 
There was only one good point about the storm 
which now began : it did not let us know that it 



434 THE LAURENTIANS 

was to last until we had left the Laurentians 
mistily behind us. 

For the first hours it was not so bad. The cur- 
rent was swift, and the canoe-men strong. The 
ladies sang and I bailed. I noticed that the rain 
had now a greenish tinge but supposed that was 
only natural in so wild a region. It was getting 
colder, too, but that was only natural. So were 
we, which was only natural, also. 

I was most interested in the entrance of the 
Mattawin Kiver from the west. Long months 
before, I had stared at the other end of it, from 
Tremblant Mountain, with a surmise that would 
have been even wilder than Cortez's if I had 
yielded to it. For hundreds of miles that stream 
threaded a wilderness stocked with adventure. 
It is rather a pity that it is so nearly unnavigable. 

Unfortunately our current slowed up above 
Grand Piles, an act which was not imitated by the 
rain. We had omitted lunch in our haste to reach 
final shelter. Everybody was cold and hungry, 
though I must say still cheerful, when Ferdinand 
made his impossible assertion. He said that he 
knew a house where they kept a motor-boat that 
could take us to Grand Piles before dark. Had 
I not been so sorry for Ferdinand, dripping and 
fatigued, I would have known better than to be- 
lieve his statement. As the rain had made our 
canoe look successively like a finger-bowl, a soup- 



ODYSSEY OF THE ST. MAURICE 435 

tureen, and a bathtub of sea-water owing to the 
extraordinary richness of the green dye in the 
pillows, I thought it better to make use of Ferdin- 
and's advantageous offer. So we hove to at about 
an hour before dusk at a lonely and bedraggled 
village in order to resume our voyage in the 
motor-boat. 

Only then did we notice the pillow-havoc. 
Sally-gay's hand-made habitant rugs, Alice's duf- 
j3e, even the seat of my breeches had all changed 
their expression, the former dignified fabrics 
having taken on a permanent green simper. 
Sally-gay picked up the erring cushions which 
were still leaking color, and said, ''What shall we 
do with themf 

"Let 's leave them,'^ said Alice. *'I think 
we 've got the best of the green." 

We climbed the bank to the store, noting that 
the rain had stopped. Indeed, it timed its efforts 
to ours with almost chronometrical precision. 

The man who lived, or thought he lived, in that 
woe-begotten spot where we had halted was glad 
to see us. Presumably he had rented out his 
motor-boat before. And in order to blind us to 
our next step he brought out some wine. I 've 
forgotten whether it was made of grapes or dan- 
delions or geraniums; there was somthing about 
it, anyway. The effect on Ferdinand was notice- 
able at once. This shows how unjustly wine 



436 THE LAURENTIANS 

works. Wine is intended to make one forget 
motor-boats. As a matter of fact Ferdinand was 
the only one who was not to be subjected to the 
motor-boat. The rest of ns could not forget. 

The motor-boat owner had the foresight to 
have a son to run his boat for him, and, when word 
came up from the water-front that the engine had 
consented to go, we clambered aboard. Ferdi- 
nand pressed his au revoirs upon us, declaring 
that no party in the past had warmed his feelings 
so, and mourning that none in the future likely 
would. 

The engine coughed, and they pushed us off. 
Ferdinand rushed to a hillock for a final farewell, 
and remembering Sally-gay's passion for song, 
burst into ' ' L ' Allouette. ' ' The lyric was already 
burdened with memories for us. But I think no 
one of us will consider this the least of them : the 
devoted little man, crowing out his enthusiasm in 
a torrent of song, the high notes flat as a tire, yet 
with much sincerity behind the wine, behind the 
gestures that made a windmill's motions look re- 
stricted. Ferdinand's farewell was funny, yet 
not altogether funny either. 

And the same could be said of the motor-boat. 
We had been pushed off, not because the motoring 
arrangements had been completed, but because 
(as I see now) the owner was in sad need of 
money, A high north wind had followed the rain, 



ODYSSEY OF THE ST. MAURICE 437 

a new moon, looking as cold as Copenhagen, sailed 
through shoals of clouds without grounding, and 
apparently without having to be cranked. Know- 
ing nothing about engines, I sat out of the w^ay 
and shivered while Fred and the owner pursued 
the process called motor-boating. It 's a secret 
process done mostly with a wrench and an oil-can. 
Unfortunately the owner didn't seem to be in 
the secret. 

I have no desire to reproduce the ghastliness 
of the next three hours. Dark succeeded moon- 
shine, a freezing gale followed the merely cold 
wind of afternoon ; but the most the engine would 
do was sniff, sneeze, cough for a breathless mo- 
ment or two, and then sulk for forty. Finally it 
w^as clear that the sequence of disabilities had 
brought us into actual peril. It was genuinely 
rough already. It was impossible to land, and 
pointless anyway in such a wilderness. And as 
we had got but imperfectly dried in the house the 
cold was burrowing sinisterly for our vitals. 

'^Eemember our motto," said Alice; ^'nothing 
in moderation." 

''If this river were salt I 'd say swim for 
shore," said Sally-gay. 

"Our end will be just as bitter," said Alice. 
And they kept it up, either chaffing our fate till 
it turned tail and fled, or picturing the dehghts of 
the Laurentian Club, until we were as good as 



438 THE LAURENTIANS 

surrounded by hot baths and food and beds. Im- 
agination, especially when manipulated by two 
witty and high-spirited women, is the armorplate 
of joy. I firmly believe that if they had yielded 
to the total of our petty disasters and wept, they 
would not have come through that exposure 
scatheless. Tears would not have been unreason- 
able, however. 

The next morning dawned damply in Grand 
Piles. Possibly this was our fault. Of course 
I do not want to be criticized for having any 
kaiserliche pretensions; but we had noticed so 
repeatedly the simple fact that whenever we 
moved it caused rain that the conclusion was be- 
coming obvious. 

None of us had ever been in to Lac la Peche, 
and consequently could not imagine the state of 
the roads. When we asked a native if he could 
drive us to the Laurentian Club and he said, "Ah, 
oui," we fell into the old-fashioned habit of be- 
lieving him. "We could star as the Simple- 
Minded Sisters," said Alice, hours later, when 
the worst was known. 

So we hired two buckboards and one driver. 
As the horses had derived their conception of 
speed from the study of glaciers, the driver felt 
safe in coming back alone. And anyway there 
was no other. 

WTiile toiling up the first half-mile, which was 



ODYSSEY OF THE ST. MAURICE 439 

nearly vertical, we had time to say farewell to the 
St. Maurice. At Grand Piles it undergoes a 
partial taming, which is completed at Grand' 
Mere, and repeated at Shawinigan Falls and 
Three Rivers. I was glad to turn inland and not 
to witness its subjection to pulp-mill and towns, 
tawdry or model. I wanted to remember the 
sense of seclusion it had given us for so many 
days — seclusion conveyed, despite its greatness, 
by the sheltering palisades and interminable 
forest. I wanted no scenes of brick chimneys and 
freight-cars to overlay the pictures of its early 
beauty — those full-blooded rapids we had run and 
those glittering riffles that no man dare encounter; 
the parrot-colored glens still gay with autumn, 
and the heights already hushed to their thin win- 
ter purples. Most of all I desired nothing to in- 
terfere with those dreamlike days on the upper 
stream, and the imagination 's quests into the hin- 
terland where the fur-getters go and the Indians 
live according to tradition. The rest were silent, 
too, being also busy with memory. 

To be wholly truthful, I must say that conversa- 
tional interplay between our buckboards was con- 
siderably curbed by the fear of severing our 
tongues. The man who originally laid out the 
road must have done it in a mood of venomous 
spite toward travelers. The carriages would 
climb a rocky ledge, balance delicately, and then 



440 THE LAURENTIANS 

plunge down to the general level again. Some- 
times the horse succeeded in slipping out from 
underneath, in which case the wagon fell further. 
We sacrificed first ease and then comfort and 
finally bare safety to our desire to reach the club. 
I began to wonder how they could transport sup- 
plies, to say nothing of timid guests, over such a 
road. It never occurred to me that they didn't. 
Not, at least, until we reached the lake. 

When this idea did occur, it came forcefully and 
simultaneously to all of us. For we saw before 
us a grassy cove, an extensive body of water, the 
roof of the clubhouse on the distant horizon, and 
nothing else. 

*'Pas telephone?" asked our driver. 

* ' You said you 'd drive us to the club. ' ' 

**Ah, oui, mais il vous faut telephoner pour le 
batteau. ' ' 

That was obvious; more obvious than to know 
what to do next. Certainly no one of us could 
contemplate riding back, not without being ban- 
daged. This was when Alice said that we could 
qualify for the circuit. Yet events had been so 
worded that it was nobody's fault, not even the 
driver's. We gave him some money to telephone 
(which he never did) and sat do^\ai. to await the 
effect. We calculated that this would take four 
hours. And now even the zodiac took pity on us. 
A noon sun broke through the clouds, and warmed 





\ 







ST. MAURICE WATERSHED 



ODYSSEY OF THE ST. MAURICE Ml 

some logs for us to sit on. Our hopes broke out 
afresh, and it seemed quite enjoyable to finish off 
our adventuring with being castaways upon a 
desert beach. 

The desertedness of it was efficient without 
being uncomfortable. The void around us was 
screened from view by pretty clumps of spruce, 
and there was a charming cove in which we could 
loll for the next few days until hunger should dull 
our esthetic edge. In order to observe the pro- 
prieties of the castaway Sally-gay tied some 
towels together and I hung them to a tree for 
signal to the conventional boat of rescue. Only 
we intended to do our signaling completely and 
amplified the towels with a fire. We hoped that 
the Laurentian Clubbers would guess that it was 
too cold for spontaneous combustion and hasten to 
scare the trespassers from their premises. But 
they were either very nonchalant or at dinner. 

Nothing shows up one's state of mind more 
personally than waiting. Particularly while 
waiting on a desert island. Then, if ever, one's 
reaction to that intangible presence of our past, 
called fate, becomes evident and others see us in 
a way that is more than usually visible. Conse- 
quently it was like Fred, ever used to the nip of 
circumstance and the niceties of self -aid, to rescue 
us. While we were sitting around priding our- 
selves on our strength of mind in being able to 



442 THE LAURENTIANS 

continue amiable under the exasperating circum- 
stances, Fred was nosing about the beach looking 
over our resources. There was a lot of grass and 
a lot of water, and if we had been sea-cows, say, 
the situation would have been alluring. But the 
lack of anything seemed only to stimulate the boy, 
and while we were just remarking in our genial 
conversational way how nice it would be to make 
a raft, Fred came poling around the point on one. 
It was a raft reduced to the most economical 
terms, being two large logs with a flatfish smaller 
log thrown across, and propelled by a still smaller. 

"Will you get there on thatf" asked Alice. 

*'Sure," said Fred, and set off along the shore. 
We watched him round a cape, and reappear along 
the far shore, poUng steadily and confidently 
until he had poled himself from sight and out of 
this story. 

The Terrible Trio settled back into their most 
comfortable positions for gossip. 

Epilogue 

"It has been an amazing trip," said Alice, pok- 
ing another stick into the fire; "amazingly un- 
comfortable and amazingly satisfying." 

"A trip of paradoxes," added Sally-gay. "I 
began it tired, have done more and been done to 
more than ever in my life, and yet here I am 
rested." 



ODYSSEY OF THE ST. MAURICE 443 

''Because we have been unforgettably happy," 
I ventured, 'Hhanks partly to the beauty of things, 
and partly to your heroic readiness to meet 
adventure. ' ' 

Sally-gay started to protest, but Alice stopped 
her. ''Let him go on," she said, "Nothing in 
moderation, remember; not even flattery." 

"I wasn't fliattering you," said I; "merely 
paving the way to propound my new theory of 
happiness." 

"All right, propound away," laughed Alice; 
"there 's plenty of time." 

"We 've been happy because we Ve seen 
farther than ever before, and vision is happiness. 
Isn't that so, philosopher?" 

"But what when the vision is over?" asked 
Sally-gay. 

"That 's the beauty of it; it is never over. 
The vision has given you stature, has lifted you 
above the level of some previously enclosing 
wall, and made you a permanently bigger person. 
The larger your sympathies the better you 
are." 

"Mine enlarged enormously on that buck- 
board," said Alice, "but they were for myself. 
Does that count?" 

So waned the afternoon; and for me those 
hours of wit, women, and warming sun were the 



444 THE LAURENTIANS 

quintessence of the trip 's delights. With the first 
sound of oars the trip for me was over. 

Of course there is much else to chronicle: the 
hospitable reception at the club; exceedingly in- 
teresting talks with Commodore Parker, the 
sprightly-witted gentleman who started the Laur- 
entian Club and many others, and who, despite 
his eighty-odd years, took a keen interest in our 
doings; the trip to Little Lac Grenier, near-by, 
about which Drummond wrote the most charming 
of his lyrics, whose first stanza runs : 

Leetle Lac Grenier, she 's all alone, 

Right on de mountain-top; 

But cloud sweepin' by will fin' tarn to stop 

No matter how quickly he want to go, 

So he '11 kiss leetle Grenier down below. 

But chronicles must have an end, even if 
travels never do. 

Next morning it was snowing when Fred and 
I started our long drive to Grand' Mere. The 
heavy wet flakes blew into my eyes, and I was 
glad to be blinded, for I could so much the better 
see the pictures that thronged before my mind — 
Matamek and our camp on the Mistassini, the 
college-like days at Roberval, Thaddee of the 
fishing-squad at St. Basile, that night beneath 
Eternity — pictures of a summer already incred- 
ibly distant. Distant but present, and unfading, 



ODYSSEY OF THE ST. MAURICE 445 

too: Rutherford, Frangois, Alice and Sally-gay 
and Fred, La Grande Decharge, the whole ma- 
jestic SagTienay, the North! 

What seven-leagne boots I had worn ! And how 
true it is that each step I had taken was an eter- 
nity long, that the effect of each affinity with 
whom I had got in stride would march with me 
forever. I had set out to see the oldest moun- 
tains in the world ; but I was returning with price- 
less souvenirs of an even older make, affections. 
Nor was my new store of these a useless collec- 
tion to be set aside, for affections are sharp tools 
with which we help to blaze our way into the un- 
trailed future. 

Chronicles must end, I repeat, though journeys 
never do. Fred and I were to part at the Junc- 
tion. We wiped the snow out of our faces and 
tried to smile, but it was about as unsuccessful as 
the weather. 

*'I hate to say good-by," he said; "somehow 
it ^s been — " 

'^I can't either," said I; "it certainly has 
been — " 

And then we had gripped hands, incontestably, 
and I found that that did very well instead. 



SOME PRACTICAL ADDENDA 

OUR Don Marquis has observed that for a 
poet to issue his first book of poems is very 
like letting fall a rose-leaf into the Grand Canon 
and waiting for the echo. I, too, have noticed 
that a travel-book dropping from the press makes 
about the same amount of uproar as the rose-leaf. 

But with this volume all will be changed. I 
fancy that there will be a response to it, a re- 
sponse, let me hasten to add, in the form of a wild 
unanimous howl of rage when the (assumed) 
readers shall have got this far, only to discover 
that they have been tricked into reading, or worse, 
buying (though this is rarer) a book which has n't 
a single Baedekerish star in it, a book which con- 
tains no comments on currency, duration of voy- 
age, passports, estimated expenses, custom- 
houses, climate, plan of tour, what to tip, and 
where to check umbrellas; a book that offers no 
general hints on underclothes, or how to behave 
on public holidays, with times for pedestrians; a 
book that has got them nowhere, though .not very 
specifically and then left them there. 

Unfortunately, what has been wreaked on four 

447 



448 ADDENDA 

hundred and fifty pages can scarcely be remedied 
in four, but, while still unable to offer any note- 
worthy ideas on the fine arts, morals of the aborig- 
ines, or the penal institutions of the district un- 
der consideration, I have saved a few practical 
remarks for the end, the first of which concerns 
the— 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

A nation, during its lifetime, may be known by 
divers things — French dressing, German toys, the 
Russian Ballet, the roast beef of old England. 
But in the end a nation is chiefly memorable fo-r 
its culture, and this is chiefly handed down through 
its literature. On this basis French Canada would 
make a lean showing in the archives of the future, 
and still leaner is the collection of writings on the 
great, varied, and fascinating region which con- 
cerns us here. 

I have no intention of collating a list of titles 
which nobody would read anyway, but am desirous 
of putting down a few of the books to which I am 
indebted for stimulation and information, and 
which any one intending to see this region might 
well read beforehand. 

Foremost comes Francis Parkman. In his 
*'Champlain" and "The Jesuits in North 



ADDENDA 449 

America" and ''The Old Regime in Canada" 
there is told the tale of heroes and saints in such 
a moving manner and in such imperishable prose 
that their saga has been written for all time. 
Therein are preserved the best of the Jesuit 
''Relations," those Pepys diaries of the Western 
world. 

Next in importance, for the pleasure of knowing 
the dwellers in this land, is Louis Hemon's 
"Maria Chapdelaine, " in the original, while for 
information "The Ouananiche and Its Canadian 
Environment" by Mr. E. T. D. Chambers, out of 
print but obtainable in a few libraries, is of great 
value and interest. And, to conclude the list of 
"compulsory reading," buy, if you can, Lt.-Col. 
William Wood's "In the Heart of Old Canada" 
for his chapters on ' ' The Habitant ' ' and ' ' French- 
Canadian Folksong." This is published by 
Briggs of Toronto. Col. Wood is an authority 
and an artist, whose vital and yet sensitive pen 
writes of northeastern Canada in a way that con- 
veys some notion of the scholarly and magnetic 
man behind the pen. It also conveys the truth 
with rare charm and wit. 

I read parts of many other books, all of which 
bear enough on the subject to be mentioned, yet 
not heavily enough to warrant much excitement. 
"Quebec" by Beckles Willson covers much 
ground, but hastily. I have been told that Mr. 



450 ADDENDA 

Willson's boob on the Hudson's Bay Co., '^The 
Great Company," is the best on that romantic 
subject. 

' ' Le Saguenay, ' ' by Arthur Buies, is filled with 
historical minutiae. 

Sir Gilbert Parker's ''The Eight of Way" is 
melodrama at its best, and contains the whole 
dramatis personae of habitant-land as well. But 
the difference between a ripping good story and 
reality can be discerned by comparing it with 
Hemon's masterpiece. 

''Life and Sport on -the North Shore," by Na- 
poleon A. Comeau, ,is an account of fishing and 
hunting on the lower St. Lawrence, unpretentious 
but true. 

W.. H. H. Murray's "Doom of the Mamelons," 
a forgotten book laid near Tadousac. 

In "From my Quebec Scrapbook," by G. M. 
Fairchild, Jr., there are attractive essays on habi- 
tant life, as also in Louis Frechette 's ' ' La Noel au 
Canada. ' ' 

I know of no more interesting way to people 
the bjUsh with life than to read "The Life His- 
tories of North. American Mammals," by Ernest 
Thompson Seton. In this engrossing two-volume 
work the artist-naturalist gives beautifully all 
the available information about the dozens of 
kinds of animals which invisibly surround the 
voyager in the Quebec wilderness. Unless one 



ADDENDA 451 

knows that each square mile of forest is actually 
harboring weasels and mink and all the rest, and 
unless he knows something of their little humors 
and their tragedies, he will pass through the si- 
lence and desolation of the "brule" sadly missing 
the chief thrill it can give him. Charles G. D'. 
Eoberts and Arthur Heming (in "The Drama of 
the Forest") perform an equivalent function for 
one in poetic and fairly complete manner. 

Of course William Henry Drummond's unique 
quartet, ''The Habitant," ''The Voyageur," 
"Johnnie Courteau," and "The Great Fight," 
should be owned, in the order named, for his dozen 
best poems have a way of recalling you to them 
again and yet again. 

There are many charming essays on this region, 
scattered through Henry Van Dyke's works, in 
John Burroughs 's, and the magazines of Canada 
and the United States. But the readable books 
about it have yet to be written, all the information 
yet available being salted away in Government 
reports or scientific monographs. It seems 
strange that there has not been an authoritative 
volume on the Saguenay, or on the magical hinter- 
land on either side of it, peopled for a century and 
knowm of for three. It seems strange that no- 
body had begun writing the book of the Montag- 
nais Indian until luckily for them, Mr. Frank G. 
Speck dedicated his life to this undertaking. The 



452 SOME RANDOM HINTS 

result will be a veritable treasure. Meanwhile, 
this country lacks its Marco Polo, its Thoreau, its 
Hudson, or even its Bret Harte. 



SOME RANDOM HINTS 

If there be any universal secret of happy travel, 
it lies in finding the soul of the people and places 
where one goes. This is rarely done by antag- 
onizing the natives. And the natives of habitant- 
land can be antagonized on the spur of the mo- 
ment merely by any one suggesting that they 
speak a patois. The French-Canadians are even 
more keenly sensitive about their language than 
Americans in England. 

The consensus of opinion of those who know is 
that the habitant speaks no patois, ''no degenerate 
form of standard speech," but a genuine old 
French which has been invaded somewhat by 
Anglicisms and a few Indian and Canadian words. 
Certainly the English idiom, as she is twisted on 
Broadway, would not be so intelligible to King 
James as to make us able to throw stones at our 
neighbors, who, as a matter of fact, would be in- 
telligible to Jacques Cartier or Montcalm. 

Another method of not getting under the 
French-Canadian skin is to presuppose that it is 
coarser than the Saxon cuticle, that these cheerful, 



SOME RANDOM HINTS 453 

easy-going farmers are a bit inferior to yourself, 
who are lugging around a bagful of British blood. 
The world, it is true, would not spin with the same 
celerity if there were only habitants at the wheel. 
But as Col. Wood, with his usual incisiveness, 
says, '' 'Business is business' is an excellent defi- 
nition of a most excellent thing. ' ^ That 's all it is, 
and not the whole of life. The habitant has mas- 
tered some of the art of life which it would be well 
for the New Yorker to know, and which the tourist 
New Yorker will never learn if he approach the 
habitant as a relic, a curiosity, or a human being 
inferior in soul-power or even thought-power to 
himself. 



ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 

Nothing gives just the same degree of pleasure 
to a man as acknowledging a real indebtedness, 
for the inherent sense of justice in us is forever 
seeking satisfaction. This is why the mystic 
finds a speechless ecstasy in thanking God, and 
why the mails are crossed with letters from un- 
known readers to writers they have never met. 

When it comes, however, to acknowledging my 
indebtedness for all the helpfulness and interest 
shown me while I was in the process of flux nec- 
essary to seeing Laurentian-land, my sense of 
justice gets absolutely flurried. If I mention 
that it was due to J. Ade. Tremblay's hospitality 
that I met M. Gonsalve Desaulniers, to whom I 
am indebted for the pleasure of meeting the Hon- 
orable M. Perrault, who passed me on to the 
Honorable Honore Mercier, who did his best to 
get me in touch with the Government, that is only 
following up one line of gratitude, while leaving 
others of importance in its wake unacknowledged. 

Individual mention being impossible, I still 
cannot refrain from thanking a few of those 

454 



ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 455 

whom I assailed more than the average number 
of times for information. There was Mr. John 
Murray Gibbon, who (not only as an officer of the 
C. P. R. but as a writer and a sort of current step- 
father of Canadian literature) gave me encour- 
agement, concrete as well as informational. And 
when he wasn't helping me, Mr. Allyn 0. Sey- 
mour of the C. P. R. was. Then there is Mr. Wal- 
ter Rutherford, whose creative eye not only 
through his camera, but in many a letter, has 
added to these pages' usefulness. And Pere 
Courtois of Chicoutimi intrusted his films to me, 
a stranger, and in Ottawa M. C. Marius Barbeau 
interrupted his pressing work to dig out pam- 
phlets and to give me the results of his beautiful 
photography. Nor has anybody been more gen- 
erously considerate than Mr. Frank G. Speck of 
the University of Pennsylvania. I was glad to 
have the results of skill and knowledge of these 
men ; but after contact with stolid politicians and 
the almost equally uncaring rural mind, it was a 
heart-warming pleasure to find men so respon- 
sive and so kind. It is this personal and profes- 
sional hospitality of theirs which I can never suf- 
ficiently acknowledge. 

Of the lift here and the word of encouragement 
there, of Ballanger and Naud in Roberval, and 



456 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 

Tom Nesbitt Chicoutimi, and the many others 
along the way I cannot speak. Nor of Mr. R. H. 
Hathaway, and Mrs. W. H. Drummond, and those 
who aided with letters. In the text I have tried 
to mention the men who made living and memor- 
able mile-stones down my summer. And, as in 
the rush of Christmas, one forgets the friend near- 
est at heart, so I shall doubtless find that I've un- 
mentioned some old friend like Adin Ballou who 
hunted Metropolitan libraries for me, or Alfred 
L. Donaldson and Arthur H. Thomas who kindly 
put their finger (or their foot) on errorful pages 
still fresh with the morning ink. 



INDEX 



Abitibi, toucbed on, 119 ff 
Allen, John, 401 
Angers, Philip, 376 
Archambault, Lac, 28 S 
Ashuapmouchouan, R., 244 ff 

Bagotville, 342 

Ballou, Adin, 84 

Bear Mt., 57 

Beaulieu, Lac, 68 

Beauvais, Fred, 10, 345 ff, 397 fl 

Bedard, M., 166 

Belle Rive, 125 

Bibliography, 448 

Black Mts., 39 

Black R., 33 

Boyd, John, 115 

Buies, A., 357, 450 

Bush duffle, 37, 38 

Cape Trinity, Eternity, 347 ff 
Carman, Bliss, 86 ff 
Celtic chat, 312 
Chalet St. Donat, 31 
Chambers, E. T. D., 133, 274 
Chambord, 153 
"Chanson du Chasseur," 431 
Chauvineuve, 415 
Chicoutimi, 292 ff 
Civilization defined, 76 
Clair Lac, 55 
Clifford, Mr., 19 
Comeau, N. A., 450 

Decharge, La Grande, 273 ff 
Decharge, La Petite, 293 



4S7 



Descente des Femmes, 309 ff 
Devil's R., 78 ff 
Down the St. Maurice, 421 ff 
"Drama of the Forest," 451 
Drummond, W. H., 401 ff, 444, 

451 
Dubuc, M., 302 ff 

Edward, Lake, 138 ff 
Eternity, Cape, 347 ff 

Fairchild, G. M., 450 
Fleurant, Moise, 115 
Flies and precautions, 108 ff 
Frechette, L., 450 
French-Canadians and the War, 

327 
Furs, 388 

Gallic moods, 162 

Gervais Rapid, 293 

Gluskap, Story of, 255 ff 

Gouin Dam, 412 

Graham Lake, 81 

Grand Lac Cache, 80 

Grand Lac Jacques Cartier, 136 

Grand Piles, 438 

Gray Rocks Inn, 77, 115 

Guay, Joseph, 300 ff 

Habitant culture, 333, 336 

faces, 137 

hospitality, 262 

life, 318 ff 

sexes, 154 
Ha! Ha! Bay, 342 
Hamilton, Factor, 195 



4*58 



INDEX 



Harris, Dean, 363 
Heming, Arthur, 451 
Hemon, Louis, 163, 449 
Huot's, Madame, 240 

He du Pin, 51 
He Maligna, 280 S 
Indian, Montagnais, 216 

"Je voudrais bien me marier,' 
266 



Lavoie, 341 

LeBel Henri, 272 

Le Gros Mer, 276 

Le Tableau, 317 

Lea Cedres, 279 

"Life History of North Amer- 
ican Mammals," 450 

Lighthall, W., 83, 84 

L'lle Maligne, 280 ff 

"Lord of My Heart's Elation," 
94 



Kenny, Captain, 239 
Kenogami, Lac, 304 
Kimball, Philip, 157 ff, 296 
Kiskisink, 152 
Kurtness, Joseph, 200 

Lac Archambault, 28 ff 

aux Rats, 235 

Beaulieu, 68 

Clair, 55 

Commissionaire, 152 

Edouard, 138 fif 

Grand Cache, 80 

Grand Jacques Cartier, 136 

He du Pin, 51 

Kenogami, 304 

la Peche, 444 

Mer Bleue, 128 

Nominingue, 124 ff 

Ourareau, 33 ff 

Ouimet, 49 

Ours, 64 

Plat, 64 

Prevost, 49 

St. Jean, 161, 182 ff 

Tache, 72 

Tremblant, 83 ff 

31 Milles, 128 
La Descente des Femmes, 309 
La Grande Decharge, 273 ff 
La Tuque, 393 
Laurentians described, 56 
Laurentide Park, 134 ff 
La Vache Caille, 292 



Managing guides, 71 
Maniwaki, 128 

Maria Chapdelaine herself, 166 
"Maria Chapdelaine," the book, 

163 ff 
Matamek, 203 ff 
Metabouchouan, 136 
Mistassini, R., 214 
Moisan, 0., 384 ff 
Montagnais, Life of the, 209 
Montdechingue, 406 
Mont Laurier, 125 
Mont Tremblant, 105 ff 
Murray, W. H. H., 450 

Naud, Albert, 180 
Neron, David, 272 ff 
Nimaban, 253 
Nomininque, 122 ff 
Nominingue Lac, 124 
North of Mistassini, 232 
North of Mont Tremblant, 122 

Ottawa, 127 
Ouananiche fishing, 284 

flies, 275 
"The Ouananiche and Hs Can- 
adian Environment," 133, 274 

Pambina, R., 48 
Parker, Commodore, 444 
Parker, Sir Gilbert, 450 
Park, Laurentide, 134 ff 



INDEX 



459 



Parkman, 42, 130 ff, 448 
Partridge-shooting, 425 
Passionate entry into Nomi- 

ningue, 123 
Patois, 452 
Peribonka, 165 ff 
Pickering, G. D. T., 407, 416 
Pointe Bleue, 191 ff 
Price, Sir William, 369 ff 
Prince of Wales, 29 ff 

Quebec City, 130 ff 
Quigley, Capt., 377 

Rapid- shooting, 277 
Roberts, C. G. D., 92 
Routes: Lac Archambault, to 
Devil's River, Chap. IV 
Devil's R to Lac Tremblant, 

80 ff 
away from Mont Laurier 

line, 118 ff 
in Temiskjaming district, 

119 
Lake Edward to the Bos- 

tonnais, 146 ff 
away from Lake St. John, 

200 
in the upper St. Maurice 
region, 413 ff 
Rowley Bros., 138 ff 
Rutherford, Walter, 241 ff 

Saguenay, 357 ff 
^Sanmaur, 405 
Scott, Col., 179 
Shooting rapids, 277 



Speck, Frank G., 252 

Stacker Lake, 245 

Ste. Agathe, 17, 20 

St. Alphonse, 342 

Ste. Anne du Saguenay, 377 

St. Donat, 45 

St. Joseph d'Alma, 259 ff 

Ste. Marguerite, 330 ff 

St. Maurice, 393 ff 

Tableau, Le, 317 
Tadousac, 363 ff 
Talon, 131 

Temiskaming touched on, 119 
Tessier, Armand, 200 
"The Great Return," 98 
Theory of Gesture, 324 
Thibault, freres, 21 ff 
Trappist monastery, 221 ff 

regime, 224 ff 
Tremblant, Lac, 103 
Tremblant Mont, 105 ff 
Tremblay, Jehu, 260 

Frangois, 263 
Trinity Cape, 347 
Tumpline, 52, 53 

Union, Lac, 47 

Unusual Waitress, 156 ff 

Van Bruyssels, 152 
Villeneuve, Basile, 306 ff 

Wayagamack, 397 
Wheelers, The, 74 
Willson, Beckles, 449 
Wood, Lt. Col. Wm., 449 



